A Discourse of the Efficient of
Regeneration
Part 2
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.
Two doctrines were raised from these words.
1. That man, in all his capacities, is too
weak to produce the work of regeneration in himself.
This I have despatched, and now proceed to
the
2nd Doct. God alone is the prime efficient
cause of regeneration.
It is subjectively in the creature,
efficiently from God. Ezekiel's dry bones met not together of their own accord,
Ezek. xxxvii. 5, 6, or by chance, but were gathered by God, and inspired with
life; and not only the last act of life, but the whole formation of them in
every part, he does particularly own as the act of his own power. And doing
every part of it by degrees, they should know, by that admirable work upon
them, that he was God: 'I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall
live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring flesh upon you, and cover
you with skin; and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.' This
work does as much discover the glory of his deity, and speaks him God in a more
illustrious manner than the creation of the world. We know him to be the Lord Jehovah
by his creation of the world; but a clearer knowledge of him in his power is
added by his regeneration of the soul. The sinews, flesh, skin, all the
preparations to grace, are from God, as all the preparations of that mass of
clay for the breath of life in Adam were from the power of God, as well as the
living soul itself. Most do understand it of the recovery of the Jews from the
captivity of Babylon; but certainly it has a higher import, and respects the
time of the gospel, and the renewing of life in the soul of all the Israel of
God. (1.) Because the prophecy extends further than the two tribes captivated
in Babylon; for, verse 11, the bones are said to be 'the whole house of
Israel,' who despaired of ever seeing and good, complaining that their bones
were dried: ver. 11, 'Our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts.' Which
could not be rationally the complaint of the Jews, who had a promise that,
after seventy years' captivity, they should return, and therefore their case
was not so desperate. (2.) Because, verse 14, he speaks of 'putting his Spirit
into them;' meaning thereby that work he had spoken of in the former chapter,
Ezek. xxxvi. 7, which certainly, being a covenant of grace, respected the times
of the gospel. If it be said that it is meant of forming the church, it must
also be meant of forming every member of it, since the least member of Adam was
formed by God, as well as the whole body. Certainly, if renewed men, after some
great falls, having still the root of habitual grace in them, cry to God, out
of a sense of their own insufficiency, for the creating a clean heart, as David
does, Ps. li. 10, 'Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit
within me;' if he then, who had this root remaining, and had some sparks which
presently were blown up upon Nathan's speech to him, cries out for a new
creation, what need has he then of an almighty breath who has not any warm
ashes of grace or any one string of a spiritual root in his soul! Whatsoever,
therefore, is holy, good, and spiritual in us, we owe to the new-creating grace
of God. All graces are his "charismata", his free donatives, over and
above his common largeness to nature, a present from his infinite liberality.
I shall show,
I. That God is the efficient.
II. That it is necessary he should be so.
III. From what principles in God it flows.
IV. How God does it.
V. The use of it.
I. That God is the efficient.
(1.) In the first promise, Gen. iii. 15, 'I
will put enmity,' &c. In which promise is included the whole work of redemption,
and new creating man under another head, with another nature, which should not
comply with the designs of Satan, or gratify the great enemy of God and mankind
by unravelling the work of God, and subjecting himself to misery. It was
necessary to our happiness that the league between Stan and us should be
broken, that we should turn to God, hate the works of the devil, and join with
the interest which Satan endeavoured to overthrow. And God promises that he
would do it; he challenges it as his own work: 'I will put enmity;' he leaves
it not to men or angels to begin hostility. Every one, therefore, that is at a
true variance with Satan is 'God's workmanship, created in Christ,' by a second
creation, as well as he was created to a natural life in Adam by the first
creation, and 'created to good works, that he may walk in them', Eph. ii. 10.
That is, is fashioned by God to walk in ways contrary to those of Satan, which
is the greatest enmity we can express to the devil, who envied God a service
from the holiness of Adam's nature. And Satan having made that conquest, and
gained man to be his friend, it is not easy to conceive how any lower power
could unfasten this knot, and set them at variance, since the devil had both
wit enough to humour man and strength enough to keep him.
(2.) In the times of the gospel. No less
than seven times I will he does affix to his promise of the covenant, as
has been observed before, Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27. What seed was left to keep up the
name of God among the Jews was of his begetting: Rom. ix. 29, 'Except the Lord
of Sabaoth had left us a seed,' cited out of Isa. i. 9. Their standing was not
their act, but God's: and 1 Kings xix. 18, 'I have left me seven thousand, all
the knees that have not bowed to Baal.' Others were left to themselves; these
were signally wrought upon by his grace. Others are but instruments; God is the
principal agent in all the seed of the church scattered in the whole earth:
Hosea ii. 23, 'I will sow her to me in the earth,' alluding to the name Jezreel,
which signifies the seed of God. If ever the sons of Japheth 'dwell in the
tents of Shem,' it must be by God's 'persuasion,' Gen. ix. 27. The word
rendered enlarge signifies to allure. The Spirit of grace is of God's
effusion, Zech. xii. 10; it is God's pouring out a Spirit of grace on them
before their looking up to God. (Where, by the way, observe a signal testimony
of the deity of Christ; 'They shall look upon me whom they have pierced;' he
that pours upon them the Spirit of grace is he whom they pierced, which was the
Lord Jehovah, verse 8; for where in your Bibles Lord is written in great
letters, the Hebrew word there is Jehovah; the highest name of God is
here attributed to Christ.) And even in the last times he will still be the
only agent in it. When God speaks of the Jews' dispersion, under which they are
at this day, he owns this work upon their hearts at last to be an act of his
own power and of covenant mercy: Deut. xxx. 6, 'The Lord thy God will
circumcise thy heart,' &c., which some of the Jews understand of the time
of the Messiah. God will challenge this work as his own right to the end of the
world.
2. Christ appropriates it to God, and
acknowledges it to depend only upon his will. Had any other cause been in
conjunction with God, our Saviour would not have deprived it of its due praise,
nor with so much thankfulness and amazement admired the gracious pleasure of
his Father as he did,—Mat. xi. 25, 'At that time Jesus answered and said, I
thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so,
Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight,'—at that time, after he had been
discoursing of the judgments upon them for their refusal of the gospel, worse than
Sodom and Gomorrah. It was God's pleasure not to reveal it to them, and God's
justice to punish them for refusal, because they wilfully refused it. The
outward teaching was to all in the ministry of Christ, the inward revelation
only to few according to the good pleasure of God. Christ was the outward
teacher, but God the inward inspirer. That others are not renewed by him is not
because he cannot, for he is Lord of heaven and earth, but because he will
renew some and not others. Our Saviour refers it here only to the good pleasure
of God; he had erred much in ascribing it to God, if he had had the assistance
of any other cause. Why this part of the clay he had created was formed into
the body of Adam and not another, had no other cause but his pleasure; why this
part of corrupted Adam is formed into a temple, a divine image, and not
another, can be ascribed to no other but the same cause. He that formed Adam in
the earthly paradise, forms every believer in the church, the spiritual
paradise, and neither has a co-worker nor motive without himself.
3. The Scripture everywhere appropriates it
to God. They are therefore called his saints, Ps. xxxiv. 9, as being sanctified
by him as well as belonging to him, 'his people,' 'the branch of his planting',
'the work of his hands,' peculiarly his, as being created for his glory, 'that
I may be glorified,' Isa. lx. 21. Their fitness by grace for glory is the work
of his hands. The vessels of wrath are fitted for destruction, not by God, but
by themselves, Rom. ix. 22. But the vessels of mercy are prepared by him, ver.
23, 'He had before prepared unto glory.' Adam lost himself, but whosoever of
his posterity are recovered are 'wrought by God for glory,' 1 Cor. v. 5. It is
observable that the apostle ascribes this in the whole frame of it to God: 1
Cor. i. 30, 'But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us
wisdom, righteousness,' &c., because he would remove all cause of boasting
in the creature. He did not only set forth Christ at first as a principle of
righteousness, and redemption, and sanctification, but engrafted in him,
whosoever is in him, for the enjoyment of those privileges, and made him not
only in general to the world, but to us, in the particular application,
a principle of sanctification as well as righteousness. Union with Christ,
engrafting in him, new creation, putting into another state, are all purely the
work of God. He has no sharer in it. As Christ trod the winepress alone in the
work of redemption, so God engrafts men alone into this vine. As Christ was the
sole worker of redemption, so is God the sole worker of regeneration. In him we
are created, but solely by God's skill; Christ the vine, and believers the
branches, the one planted and the other engrafted by the same husbandman, John
xv. 1, 2; he only planted and dressed Christ for us, he only plants and dresses
us in Christ. It is 'by his own will,' not any other, that 'he begot us,' James
i. 18. 'Of his own will,' his own good pleasure was the motive, his own
strength the efficient. Hence he is called 'the Father of spirits,' Heb. xii.
9, not so much (as some interpret it, and that most probably) as he is the
Father of souls by creation, as by regeneration, which adds a greater strength
to the apostle's argument for submission to him and patience under his strokes.
He keeps in his own hand the keys of the heart, no less than the key of the
womb, which was always acknowledged to be in the hands of God. It is with this
prerogative of God that Jacob silences Rachel, when she so impatiently cried
out for children, as if she had a resolution to kill herself if she had them
not, with this, 'Am I in God's stead?' Gen. xxx. 1, 2. He only opens the womb
of the soul as well as that of the body, impregnates it with grace, and brings
forth the fruit of holy actions, as Philo in his allegory descants upon the
place. The Jews perhaps meant no less in that saying in their Cabala, Abraham
had not had Isaac if a letter of the name of God had not been added to his
name; the power of God, a letter of his name, must go to regeneration. It is
appropriated to none but God in Scripture: to the whole Trinity, without the
conjunction of any creature, to the Father as the author, therefore called 'Our
Father;' to Christ, as the pattern; to the Spirit, as the inspirer of that
grace whereby we are made the sons of God. The very heathen have acknowledged
this, some philosophers have affirmed, that the great virtue, wherein they
placed the happiness of man, could not be had but by the favour of God, and all
thought their heroes to be born of their gods.
And the Scripture affirms that,
(1.) All preparations to this work, as well
as the work itself, are of God. The removing indispositions, and the putting in
good inclinations, is the work of the same hand; the taking away the heart of
stone, as well as the giving a heart of flesh. He removes the rubbish as well
as rears the building; razes out the old stamp and imprints a new; destroys
sin, which is called the old man, and restores the new by the quickening of the
Spirit. The preparations of the dust of the ground to become a human body, had
the same author as the divine soul wherewith he was inspired.
(2.) All the parts of the new creature are
of God. Faith, which is the principal part of it, is 'the faith of the operation
of God,' Col. ii. 12; not but that love and other graces are wrought by God,
but in this grace, which is a constitutive part of the new creature, God comes
in with a greater irradiation upon the soul, because it has not one fragment or
point in nature to stand upon, carnal reason and mere moral righteousness being
enemies to it, whereas all other graces are but the rectifying the passions,
and setting them upon right objects. Yet all these, too, own him as the author.
Our knowledge of God is a light growing from his knowledge of us; 'we know God'
because we 'are known of him.' Gal. iv. 9. The elective act of our wills is but
a fruit of his choice of us: John xv. 16, 'You have not chosen me, but I have
chosen you;' our willing of him is a birth of his willing us, our love a spark
kindled by his love to us. God first calls us my people, before any of
us call him my God, Hosea ii. 23. The moon shines not upon the sun till
it be first illuminated by it. God first shines upon us before we can reflect
upon him; he calls us before we can speak to him in his own dialect; our coming
is an effect of his drawing, and our power of coming an effect of his
quickening. Every member in Adam was a fruit of his power, as well as the whole
body; every line drawn in the new creature is done by his pencil as well as the
whole frame.
(3.) The acts of the new creature. God does
not only give us the habit of faith, but the act of faith: Philip. i. 29, 'Unto
you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe, but also to suffer
for his sake.' By believing is meant the act of believing, as by suffering is
meant not only the power of suffering, but actual suffering; as the fruits upon
the trees at the first creation were created as well as the tree which had a
power to bear. The very attention of Lydia to the gospel preached by Paul was
wrought by God, as well as the opening of her heart, Acts xvi. 14. Our walking
in his statutes is a fruit of his grace, as well as the putting in his Spirit
to enable us thereunto. The very act of motion is made by the head and heart,
if there he a failing of spirits there, if any obstruction that they cannot
reach the indigent part, the motion ceases. David acknowledged God his
continual strength in his holy pursuits, 'My soul follows hard after thee,' Ps.
lxiii. 8. But what was the cause? 'Thy right hand upholds me.' His life and
power issued out from the right hand of God. The graces of God's people stand
in need of the irradiations of God, like the Urim and Thummim,
before any counsel could be given by them.
(4.) The continuance both of the power and
acts are from God. Habitual grace is called the 'fear of the Lord' put into the
soul; the continuance of it is by his constant sustentation, it is that we may
not depart from him Jer. xxxii. 40, 'from upon him,' from leaning upon him, or
believing in him, as the word "me'alaw" imports. If that fear put in
did once depart from us, we should no longer cleave to God; we stick to him
only because he ties us to himself, and cannot be continually with him unless
he 'holds us by his right hand,' Ps. lxxiii. 23. The grace that is wrought, as
well as the gospel which instrumentally wrought it, is 'kept by the Holy
Ghost,' 2 Tim. i. 14; he begins every good work, and he performs it. He was the
sole active cause in the creation of the faculties, and the principal cause in
preserving them; he is the sole cause of the elevation of the faculties, and
the preservation of them in that elevated state. As the virtue of the loadstone
is not only the cause of the first attraction of the steel, but of its constant
adhesion, therefore it is said: 1 Cor. i. 21, that 'God does establish us,' not
has done, to note the continual influence of his grace upon us. It was the
dropping of the two olive trees that constantly fed the lamps in the
candlesticks, Zech. iv. 2, 8. Take this new birth in all the denominations of
it, it is altogether ascribed to God. As it is a call out of the world, God is
the herald, 2 Tim. i. 9; as it is a creation, God is the creator Eph. ii. 10;
as it is a resurrection, God is the quickener, Eph. ii. 5; as it is a new
birth, God is the begetter, 1 Peter i. 3; as it is a new heart, God is the
framer, Ezek. xxxvi. 26; as it is a law in the heart, God is the penman, Jer.
xxxi. 33; as it is a translation out of Satan's kingdom, and making us denizens
of the kingdom of Christ, God is the translator, Col. i. 13; as it is a coming
to Christ, God is the drawer, John vi. 44; as it is a turning to God, God is
the attracter.
II. The second thing; it is necessary God
should be the efficient of regeneration. He is, or none.
In regard of God.
1. As he is the first cause of all things.
He is the creator of the lowest worm, and the highest angel; the glimmering
perfections of the least fly, as well as the more glittering eminencies of the
angelical nature, are distinct beams from that fountain of light and power.
Shall not he then be the cause of the divine motions of the will, as well as of
the natural motions of the creatures? Every perfection in a rational creature,
or any other, supposes that perfection to be somewhere essentially; every
impression supposes a stamp that made it, every stream a fountain from whence
it sprang, every beam a sun, or some lucid body from whence it darts. Whence
should this gracious work then be derived? Not from nature, which is contrary
to it; not from Satan, who is destroyed by it. It must be then from God, since
it must have some stable and perfect cause. He who was the cause of all the
grace in the head is also the cause of all the grace in the members. The same
sun that enlightens the heavens enlightens the earth. The grace that Christ had
was 'the gift of God,' John iii. 34, much more must it be his gift to us,
though we had souls as capacious as his. If the head derived not his grace to
himself, the members cannot; for Christ being a creature, in regard of his
humanity, must necessarily be dependent; for to make any creature independent
upon God is to advance it above the degree of a creature-state, and make it
God's fellow, yea, to have a godhead in itself, as being the first principle of
its own being. To say any creature can move to God, without being moved by God,
or live without his influence, is to make the creature independent on God in
its operations; and if it be independent in its operations, it would be so
consequently in its essence, besides, if it be not created by him, it may
subsist without him, it stands in no need of his quickening. The believers in
Scripture were very unadvised then to pray to God for his quickening and establishing
grace, if he were not the enlivener and author of it. His power works in
preservation as well as creation, John v. 17, and whatsoever is dependent on
him in preservation is dependent on him in creation and the first framing. And
if it does not depend upon him in preservation, it is not his creature, but it
is a god. All creatures have a dependence upon something immediately superior
to then. The moon receives her light and chief beauty from the sun, which else
would be but a dusky body; the earth its influence from the heavens. In
artificial things the little wheels in a watch depend upon the greater, that
upon the string (spring?), that in its motion upon the hand that winds it up.
The higher any creature is, the more immediately it depends upon God in its
production; the waters brought forth the fish, but God himself formed man.
2. As he is the promiser of it. The divine
promise is only fulfilled by a divine operation, it is necessary then for the
honour of his truth to be the performer of it. All his promises concerning this
matter run in that strain, I will: Hosea ii. 19, 'I will betroth thee to me for
ever; I will betroth thee to me in righteousness, in judgment, in
loving-kindness, and in mercy: I will even betroth thee unto me in
faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord.' The Lord promises by this of
knowing him all gracious works upon the soul, regeneration, faith, &c., for
this knowledge is an effect of the covenant which God promises in that great
copy of it: Jer. xxxi. 34, 'They shall all know me, from the least of them to
the greatest.' It is not a simple abstracted knowledge, for so the devils know
God, and Christ crucified, but such a knowledge that implies faith and love,
and a new frame of soul. It is necessary his power should make good what his
goodness has promised. It was not necessary any word of promise should go out
of his mouth, there was no engagement upon God to do it, but it is necessary
this promise should be performed; though he were free before he promised, yet
he is not free after he has promised, because his truth engages him to perform
it, and perform it as his own act, as much as his mercy moved him to promise it
as his own act. As mercy made it, so his mercy is as pressing for the
performance, and there comes in a superadded obligation from that of his truth
over and above his mercy, to perform it in the same manner he promised it, and
in all the circumstances of it. So that, supposing (which cannot be supposed)
that his mercy should repent of making it, he would not be true if he did not
perform it; besides, it consists not with his truth not to perform that by
himself which he has promised by himself, nor with his wisdom to leave that to
an uncertain cause at the best, and, further, a cause utterly unable (as every
creature is) to produce that which he had promised to do with his own hand, as
the cleansing the soul, pouring clean water upon it, pouring out a spirit of
grace, writing the law in the heart, which imply his own act principally in
this affair, in concurrence with the means he has ordained to that end. The
performance of God's promise is as infallible as the cause that made the
promise. No power can perform that for another which he promises himself to do;
for the thing itself may be done by another, yet not being done by the party
promising to do it, it is not truly done, and in conformity to the promise
made. If it were possible then to be done by any but a divine hand, it would
not be done truly, because God promises it as his own act, and therefore the
working it must be his own act in conformity to his truth.
3. As he has the foreknowledge of all
things. It is necessary God should foreknow everything future, and that shall
come to pass. This is a perfection necessarily belonging to God; and to imagine
the contrary is to frame an unworthy notion of God, and infinitely below the
great creator and governor of the world. He therefore wills everything, for if
he foreknew anything before he willed it in itself, or in its necessary causes,
he foreknow nothing. If he did not will it, how can it come to pass? Therefore
he did not foreknow that it would come to pass. If he did foreknow it, then he
willed it, otherwise his foreknowledge depended upon an uncertain cause, and he
might have judged that to come to pass which never might; unless the cause be
determined by God, it is merely contingent. He willing therefore a work of
grace in such and such persons, did foreknow that it would be wrought, because
he did will that it should be, and his working is done by an act of his will:
Rom. viii. 29, 'Whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate to be conformed to
the image of his Son.' The foreknowledge of God being stable and infallible,
and being in this case a foreknowledge of what makes highly for the glory of
all his attributes, can have no dependence upon an uncertain and fallible
cause, but upon a cause as stable as his foreknowledge, which is his will,
himself. His foreknowledge of this is not a foreknowledge of it in any created
cause, but in himself as the cause; because, as it will appear further, no
created cause could accomplish it.
In regard of the subject of this new birth.
1 In regard of the subject simply
considered, the heart and will of man, none can cork upon it but God, or have
any intrinsic influence to cause it to exercise its vital acts. Angels, though
of a very vast power, cannot work immediately upon the heart and will of
another creature, to incline and change it, by an immediate touch. All that
they can do towards any moving the will, is by presenting some external
objects, or stirring up the inward sensitive appetite to some passion, as
anger, desire; whereby the will is inclined to will something. But the stirring
up those natural affections in an unregenerate man, can never incline his will
to good; for being the affections of the flesh, they are to be crucified.
Angels also may enlighten the understanding, not immediately, but by presenting
similitudes of sensible things, and confirming them in the fancy; but to remove
one ill habit from the will or incline it to any good, is not in their power.
God gave an angel power to purge the prophet's lips with a coal from the altar,
Isa. vi. 6, 7, but that was done in a vision, and a symbol or sign only that
his uncleanness was removed. A coal could have no virtue in it to purge
spiritual pollutions from the spirit of a man. Neither can man change the will;
men by allurements or threats may change, or rather suspend the action of
another, as a father that threatens to disinherit his son; or a magistrate that
threatens to punish a subject for his debauchery, may cause a change in the
actions of such persons; but the heart stands still to the same sinful points,
and may be vicious under a fair disguise. He only that made the will, can
incline and 'turn it as the rivers of waters; the heart of the king is in the
hands of the Lord,' Prov. xxi. 1, and so is every man's heart kept in the hands
of him that created it, both cabinet and key. No man knows the heart, no, the
heart itself knows not everything which is in it. God knows all the wards in
the heart, and knows how to move it. If a man could turn the heart of another,
it could only be in one or two points; it cannot be conceived how he should
alter the whole frame of it, make it quite another thing than it was before.
The spirit of man being 'the candle of the Lord,' Prov. xx. 27, not to give
light to him, but lighted by him, can only when it is out be re-lighted, and,
when it burns dim, be snuffed by the same hand. Or, suppose for the present he could
do this, it must be with much pains and labour, many exhortations and wise
management of him upon several occasions. But to do this by a word, in a trice,
to put a law into the heart in a moment, and give the hidden man of the heart
possession of the will, that a man knows not himself how he came to be changed,
this whole work bears the mark and stamp of God in the forehead of it. Men may
propose arguments to another, and he may understand them if he has a capacity,
but no man can ever make another have a capacity who is naturally incapable; it
is God only can make the heart capable of understanding, he only can put a new
instinct into it, and make it of another bent; it is he that renews the spirit
of the mind to enable it to understand what he does propose, and elevates the
faculty to apprehend the reason of it.
2. In regard of the subject, extremely ill
qualified. Can any question the divinity of the work, when stones are made
children to Abraham; when waters of repentance are drawn out of a hard rock,
Aaron's dry rod made to bud and blossom, and bring forth fruit, Num. vii. 8,
when souls deeply allied to the kingdom of darkness are translated into the
kingdom of light? To see habits strengthened by custom, in a consumption, and
hearts filled with multitudes of idols in several shapes, casting them out with
indignation, and flourishing with new springing graces, it is too great a
miracle to be wrought by the hand of any creature. Could anything but the arm
of the Lord change the temper of the thief upon the cross, to advance further
in the space of an hour in the kingdom of God, than all the apostles had done
in the three years' converse with their Master; to confess him, when one of the
most eminent of them had denied him; to be more knowing in an instant, than
they had been in a long time; and acknowledge his spiritual kingdom, when they
even after his resurrection, and just before his ascension, expected a temporal
one? Acts i. 6, 'Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' If a
Socrates, or a Cato, or those braver lights among the heathen, were turned to
God, the interest of God in the work might upon some seeming ground be
questioned; but when the leviathans in sin, drunkards, extortioners,
adulterers, men guilty of the greatest contempt of God and the light of nature,
in whom lust had kept a peaceable possession in its empire for many years, are
thoroughly changed, who can doubt but that such must indeed be 'washed and
sanctified by the Spirit of our God'? 1 Cor. vi. 11. What can this be but the
will of God, since their hearts were so delightfully filled with evil, that
they had no room nor love for any holy thought? It is not conceivable that
where sin has made such a rout, and cut and slashed all morality in pieces,
things should he set in order there, but by a power stronger both than sin and
the law, from whence sin derives its strength. It is no less than a divine
miracle to renew an habituated sinner.
(3.) In regard of the nature of this new
birth. It is a change of nature; a nature where there was as little of
spiritual good as there was of being in nothing before the creation. It is a
change of stone into flesh; a heart that like a stone has a hardness and
settledness of sinful parts, a strong resistance against any instrument, an incorporation
of sin and lust with its nature. Where the heart and sin, self and sin, are
cordially one and the same, none can change such a nature but the God of all
grace, who has all grace to contest with all the power of old Adam. No man can
change the nature of the meanest creature in the world; he may tame them, bring
them to part with some of their wildness, but he cannot transform them. If no
man can transform the lowest creature from one nature to another, much less can
any but God transform man into another nature.
This nature is changed in every believer;
for it is impossible a man should stand bent to Christ, with his old nature
predominant in him, any more than a pebble can be attracted by a loadstone,
till it put on the nature of steel. An unrighteous nature cannot act
righteously, it must therefore be a God, who is above nature, that can clothe
the soul with a new nature, and incline it to God and goodness in its
operations. Now to see a lump of vice become a model of virtue; for one that
drank in iniquity like water, to change that sinful thirst for another for
righteousness; to crucify his darling flesh; to be weary of the poison he loved
for the purity he hated; to embrace the gospel terms, which not his passion but
his nature abhorred; to change his hating of duty to a free-will offering of
it; to make him cease from a loathing the obligations of the law, to a longing
to come up to the exactness of it; to count it a burden to have the thoughts at
a distance from God, when before it was a burden to have one serious thought
fixed on him, speaks a supernatural grace transcendently attractive and
powerfully operative. Heavy elements do not ascend against their own nature,
unless they be drawn by some superior force. To see a soul neighed down to the
earth, to be lifted up to heaven, must point us to a greater than created
strength that caused the elevation. These acts are supernatural, and cannot be
done by a natural cause; that is, against the order of working in all things,
for then the effect, as an effect, would be more noble than its cause.
(4.) In regard of the suddenness of it.
Peter and Andrew were called when they thought of nothing but their nets; and
Paul changed by a word or two, who before was not only unwilling, but
rebellious. Some have gone into a church wolves, and returned lambs. This
change comes upon some that never dreamt of it, and has snatched them out of
the arms of hell; upon others who have resisted with all their might any motion
that way, and were never greater enemies to any, than to those that would check
their sinful pleasures with such admonitions, and yet these have been on the
sudden surprised. What ground is there to ascribe any of this, but to a divine
work? Many have dropped in unto a sermon with no intention to stay, who have
felt God's hook in their souls; have leaped like fish out of their element for
a while, and God has caught them in his hand. Have you never heard of some who
have gone to make sport with a convincing sermon, or to satisfy lust with
unclean glances, who have been made prisoners by grace before their return?
This quickness of the soul in coming to Christ was promised to be the fruit of
the gospel: Hosea iii. 5, 'They shall fear the Lord and his goodness,' when
they should 'seek the Lord and David their king.' The word "pachad"
signifies not only to fear, but to hasten; both significations may be joined
together in the sense of the verse. They shall make haste to fear the Lord and
his goodness; surely the power that performs it, is the same with the goodness
which promised it. Thus some of the disciples have followed Christ at the first
call, and moved readily to him, as iron to the loadstone. For a man that was at
a great distance from God, and any affection to him, to be filled on the sudden
with a warm love and zeal for him, when nothing of interest could engage him
(and sometimes it has been with loss of friends, estate, yea, life too), is as
great a discovery of a divine hand, as if a fly were changed into the shape and
spirit of a hero; because a spiritual change is more admirable than a natural;
and the more by how much the enmity, which was greater, is driven out, for a
choice affection to rise up in its stead. The season when such a work is
wrought is more significant of a divine force, when men have been in the heat
and strength of the pursuit of their sinful pleasures, being then torn out of
the embracements of lust with an outstretched arm of God.
(5.) In regard of the excellency of the new
birth. Is it reasonable to think that the image of God should be wrought by any
other hand than the hand of God, or the divine nature be begotten by anything
but the divine Spirit? Since none but man can beget a child in his own
likeness, none but God can impart to a soul the divine nature. It is not a change
only into the image of God with slight colours, an image drawn as with
charcoal; but a glorious image even in the rough draught, which grows up into
greater beauty by the addition of brighter colours. 'Changed,' says the
apostle, 2 Cor. iii. 18, 'into the same image from glory to glory;' glory in
the first lineaments as well as glory in the last lines. Is it not too
beautiful then, even in the first draught, to be wrought by any pencil but a
divine? It is next to the formation of Christ, for it is an initial conformity
to him. God is the fountain of all our good things. If 'every good and perfect
gift comes from him,' James i. 17, shall not the best of beings be the author
of the best of works? If believers are 'light in the Lord,' Eph. v. 8, they are
no less light from him and by him who is the 'Father of lights.' It is a
'heavenly calling,' Heb. iii. 1, therefore a heavenly birth. The new heart, the
spiritual house wherein God dwells, as well as in the heavens, was not made
with a less power and skill than the earth, which is his footstool, or the
heaven, which is his throne. If none be able to make God a footstool, much less
a throne, as Jerusalem, the church, is called in the times of the gospel, Jer.
iii. 17. (The embroideries and ornaments of the material tabernacle were not
made by common art, but by a Bezaleel inspired by the Spirit of God, Exod.
xxxi. 3); can any but himself rear up a temple for the God of heaven to dwell
in? 1 Cor. iii. 9. Or is the spiritual house of God fit to be made by and but by
that God that dwells in it? It was according to the image of God that we were
first created; it is according to the image of Christ that we are new created,
Rom. viii. 29. Who understands the image of the Son but the Father? Who knows
the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him? The new
creature, according to the copy, can only be wrought by him to whom the copy is
only visible. It is for the honour of God to allow him to be the framer of all
creatures in the rank of beings. Is it not a dishonour to him not to
acknowledge him the framer of the new creature in the rank of spiritual beings,
since the later is more excellent than the treasures of the earth or the stars
of heaven, than body or soul; since the image of God consists not so much in
the substance of the soul as in a likeness to God in a holy nature? Eph. iv.
24. To be a righteous regenerate man is more excellent than to be a man; the
most glorious effect, then, must have the most glorious cause. One beam of this
divine image is too excellent to be the workmanship of any but a divine hand.
The very first regenerate thought, to the last dropping off of impurity, is
from the same hand. The first drawing us from sin, much more the stripping us
of it, is more admirable than the drawing us out of nothing.
(6.) The end of regeneration manifests it to
be the work of God. It is to display his goodness. Since this was the end of
God in the first creation, it is much more his end in the second. What creature
can display God's goodness for him, or give him the glory of it, without first
receiving it? Goodness must first be communicated to us, before it can be
displayed or reflected by us. The light that is reflected back upon the sun by
any earthly body beams first from the sun itself. Both the subject and the end
are put together in Isa. xliii. 20, 21, 'The beasts of the field shall honour
me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, to give
drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall
show forth my praise.' The Gentiles shall have the gospel, who are beasts of
the field for wildness, dragons for the poison of their nature, owls for their
blindness and darkness. The waters of the gospel shall flow to them to give
drink to their souls. This people have I formed for myself. Even beasts,
dragons, owls, if formed for himself, they could not be formed but by himself,
who only understands what is fit for his own praise. How can such incapable
subjects be formed for such high ends, without a supernatural power? So in Isa.
lx. 21, 'The branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be
glorified.' Planted by God, that God might be glorified by them. As God only is
the proper judge of what may glorify him, so he is the sole author of what is
fitted to glorify him. Nothing lower than the goodness of God can instil into
us such a goodness as to be made meet to praise, serve, and love him; such a
holiness as may fit us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light, and enjoy him for ever. As infinite wisdom formed us in Adam, and
moulded us with his own hand to be a model of his perfection, so are we no less
his workmanship in Christ by a second creation to good works, which, as they
are ordained by the will of God, so they are wrought in us by the skill and
power of God; what is ordained positively by him and for him is wrought by him.
The whole world consists but of two men and their offspring the first man,
Adam, the second man, Christ; both they, and all in them, created by God. It is
a forming a creature for himself for his own delight. What delight can God take
in anything but himself, and what is like himself? Man in his best estate is
vanity. As his being is, so are his operations. Vanity, and the operations
flowing from thence, are no fit object for the delight of an infinite
excellency and wisdom. What pleasure can he have in those things which are not
wrought by his own finger? Who knows how to dress anything savoury and pleasant
to God but his own grace? Can a finite thing touch an infinite being to enjoy
him without the operation of an infinite virtue? Can God delight in anything
principally but himself, as he is infinitely good; or in other things but as
they come nearest to that goodness? Whatsoever has a resemblance to a superior
being must be brought forth into that likeness by something superior to itself.
Now since the ends of this work are so high
as to fit us for his praise, his delight, and a fruition of him; since it is to
bring the interest of God into the soul, set him up highest in the heart who
before was trampled under our feet, enthrone him as king in the soul, cause us
to oppose all that opposes him, cherish everything that is agreeable to him,
this must be his work or the work of none.
(7.) The weakness of the means manifests it
to be the work of God. How could it be possible that such weak means, that were
used at the first plantation of the gospel, should have that transcendent
success in the hearts of men without a divine power? That a doctrine attended with
the cross, resisted by devils with all their subtilty, by the flesh with all
its lusts, the world with all its flatteries, the wise with all their craft,
the mighty with all their power, should be imprinted upon the hearts of men; a
doctrine preached by mean men, without any worldly help, without learning,
eloquence, craft, or human prudence, without the force, favour, or friendship
of men, should get place in men's hearts without a divine inspiration, cannot
well be imagined. If it be said there were miracles attending it, which wrought
upon the minds of men, it is true; but what little force they had in our
Saviour's time the Scripture informs us, when they were ascribed to Beelzebub,
the prince of devils. Though miracles did attend it after the ascension of our
Saviour, yet the apostle ascribes not so much to them as the means, as he does
to the 'foolishness of preaching, ' it was that which was the 'power of God,' 1
Cor. i. 18; it was that 'whereto God saved them that believe,' 1 Cor. i. 21.
But the greatest change that ever was wrought at one time was at the first
descent of the Spirit, by a plain discourse of Peter, Acts ii., extolling a
crucified God before those that had lately taken away his life, those that had
seen him die, a doctrine which would find no footing in their reasons, filled
with prejudice against him, and had expectations of a temporal kingdom by him.
Must not this change be ascribed to a higher hand, which removed their rooted
prejudices and vain hopes, and brought so many as three thousand over at once?
If there be 'diversities of operations, it is the same God that works all in
all,' 1 Cor. xii. 6. He conveys this 'treasure in earthen vessels, that the
power might appear to be of God, and not of men,' 2 Cor. iv. 7. Such weak means
as earthen vessels cannot work such miraculous changes. Therefore perhaps it
was that the preaching of Christ in his humiliation had so little success
attending it, that nothing should be ascribed to the word itself, but to the
power of God in it. To evidence that success depended on the good pleasure of
God, who would not make his preaching in person so successful as that in his
Spirit, which appears by Christ's thanksgiving to his Father for revealing
these things to babes, and not to the wise: 'Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight,' Luke x. 21. Have you never heard of changes wrought in the
spirits of men against their worldly interest, when they have been made the
scorn of their friends, and a reproach to their neighbours? Can the weakness of
means write a law so deep in the heart, that neither sly allurements nor
blustering temptations can raze out; that a law of a day's standing in the
heart should be able to mate the powers of hell, the cavils of the flesh, and
discouragements from the world, when there are no unanswerable miracles now to
seal the gospel, and second the proposals of it with amazement in the minds of
men? The weakness of the means, and the greatness of the difficulties, speaks
it not only to be the finger but the arm of God, which causes the triumphs of
the foolishness of preaching. When the proposal crosses the interest of the
flesh, restrains the beloved pleasure, teaches a man the necessity of the
contempt of the world, and that men should exchange their pride for humility,
the pleasure of sin for a life of holiness; for a man not only to cease to love
his vice, but extremely to hate it; to have divine flights, when before he
could not have a divine thought; to put off earthly affections for heavenly,
and all this by the foolishness of preaching, it is an argument of a divine
power, rather than any inherent strength in the means themselves.
(3.) The differences in the changes of men
evidence this to be the work of God, and that it is from some power superior to
the means which are used. As God puts a difference between men in regard of
their understandings, revealing that to one man which he does not to another,
so he puts a difference between men in regard of their wills, working upon some
and not upon others, working upon some that have known less, and not working
upon some that have known more, some embracing it, and others rejecting it. We
may see,
[1.] The difference of this change in men
under the same means. One is struck at a sermon, when multitudes return
unshaken. Why is not the case equal in all, if it were from the power of the
word? How successful is Peter's discourse, closely accusing the Jews of the
murdering of their Lord and Saviour, which is the occasion of pricking three
thousand hearts? Yet Stephen using the same method, and close application of
the same doctrine, Acts vii. 62, had not one convert upon record. While Peter's
hearers were pricked in their hearts, these gnashed with their teeth, ver. 54.
The corruption of the former was drawn out by the pricking of their souls, the
malice of the latter exasperated by the cut of their hearts. What reason can be
rendered of so different an event from one and the same means in several hands,
but the overruling pleasure of God? The reasons were the same, set off with the
same human power; the hearers were many of the same nation, brought up in the
reading of the prophets, full of the expectations of a Messiah; they had both
reasons and natural desires for happiness, as well as the other, yet the one
are turned lambs, and the others worse lions than before; the bloody fury of
the one is calmed, and the mad rage of the other is increased. The grace of God
wrought powerfully in the one, and lighted not upon the other. Two are grinding
at the same mill of ordinances, one is taken and another is left. Man breathes
into the ears, and God into what heart he pleases.
[2.] The differences in the changes of men
under less means. One is changed by weaker means, another remains in his
unregeneracy under means in themselves more powerful and likely; some are
wrought upon by whispers, when others are stiff under thunders. The Ninevites
by one single sermon from a prophet are moved to repentance; the Capernaites,
by many admonitions from a greater than all the prophets, seconded with
miracles, are not a jot persuaded; some remain refractory under great blasts,
while others bend at lighter breathings. One man may be more acute than
another, of a more apprehensive reason; yet this man remains obstinate, whilst
another becomes pliable. Whence does this difference arise, but from the will
of God drawing the one, and reusing the other to the conduct of his own will,
since both will acknowledge what they are advised to, to be their interest, to
be true in itself, necessary for their good, yet their affections and
entertainment are not the same? Some of those Jews who had heard the doctrine
of Christ, seen the purity of his life and the power of his miracles, admired
his wisdom, yet crucified his person; they expected a Messiah, yet contemned
him when he came; when the poor thief who, perhaps, had never seen one miracle,
nor heard one sermon of our Saviour, believes in him, acknowledges him to be
the Son of God, whom he saw condemned to the same death with himself, and dies
a regenerate man under great disadvantages. A figure (says one) of all the
elect, who shall only be saved by grace, and a clear testimony of an
outstretched arm of grace. Those that our blessed Saviour admonished only as a
doctor and teacher were unmoved, none stirred but those he wrought upon as a
creator.
[3.] Difference of the success of the same
means in different places. How various was the success of the apostles in
several parts of their circuits! Paul finds a great door of faith opened at
Corinth, and in Macedonia, and his nets empty at Athens; multitudes flocking in
at one place, and few at another. He is entertained at Corinth, stoned at
Lystra, Acts xiv. 19, in danger of his life at Jerusalem, while the Galatians
were so affected with the gospel, that they could have 'pulled out their eyes'
for him. The apostle was the same person in all places; the gospel was the
same, and had a like power in itself; men had the same reasons, they were all
fragments from the lump of Adam: the difference must be then from the influence
of the divine Spirit, who rained down his grace in one place and not in
another; on one heart, and not on another; who left darkness in Egypt, while he
diffused light in Goshen.
[4.] Difference in the same person. What is
the reason that a man believes at one time under the proposal of weak
arguments, and not at another under stronger? It is not ex parte objecti,
for that was more visible and credible in itself, when attended by strong
arguments, than when accompanied with weaker. Perhaps God has stricken a man's
conscience before, and he has undone that work, shaken off those convictions;
he has contended with his maker, and mustered up the power of nature against
the alarms of conscience; struggled like a wild bull in a net, and broke it,
and blunted those darts which stuck in his soul; he has afterwards been screwed
up again, and the arrow shot so deep, that with all his pulling he could not
draw it out. What but a divine hand holds it in, in spite of all the former
triumphs of nature? How come convictions at last to be fixed upon men, which
many a time before did but flutter about the soul, and were soon chased away?
And God by such a method keeps up the honour of his grace in men after
regeneration, and teaches them the constant acknowledgement of his power in the
whole management. Do we not daily find that the same reasonings and
considerations which quicken us at one time in the ways of God stir us not at
another, no more than a child can a millstone; that we are quickened by the
same word at one time, under which we were dull and stupid at another; and the
same truth is deliciously swallowed by us, which seemed unsavoury at another,
because God edges it with a secret virtue at one time more than another? Hereby
God would mind us to own him as the author of all our grace, the second grace
as well as the first. Upon all these considerations this can be no other than
the work of God. Can a corrupt creature elevate himself from a state of being
hated by God, to a state of being delighted in by him? Satan's work none can
judge it to be; the destroyer of mankind would never be the restorer; the most
malicious enemy to God would never contribute to the rearing a temple to God in
the soul, who has usurped God's worship in all parts of the world. Good angels
could never do it, they wonder at it; the wisdom of God in thus creating all
things in Jesus Christ is made known to them by it, Eph. iii. 9, 10. They never
ascribed it to themselves; if they did, they could never have been good, their
goodness consisting in praising of God, and giving him his due. Good men never
did it; the first planters of the gospel (whereby it is wrought) always gave
God the praise of it, and acknowledged both their own action, and the success,
to be the effect of the grace of God, and upon every occasion admired it, Acts
xi. 21, 23. It was 'the hand of the Lord' and 'the grace of God.'
III. The third general head, from what
principles in God it flows, or what perfections of God are eminent in this work
of regeneration. What is observable in the forming Christ in the womb of the
virgin, is observable in the forming Christ in the heart of a believer: grace
to choose her to be the holy vessel; sovereignty to pitch upon her rather than
any other of the lineage of David; truth to his promise in forming him in the
womb of a virgin, and one of the house of David; wisdom and power in the
formation of him in a virgin's womb, above the power of nature; mercy bears the
first sway as the motive of the decree, but in a way of sovereignty to call out
some, and not others; truth to himself obliges, after sovereign mercy had made
the resolution; wisdom steps in to contrive the best way to accomplish what
mercy had moved, and sovereignty had decreed; holiness rises up as the pattern;
and power rides out for the execution. Mercy moves, sovereignty decrees, truth
obliges, wisdom counsels, holiness regulates, power executes.
1. Mercy and goodness is a principal
perfection of God, illustrious in this work. 'Born not of the will of man, but
of God,' of the will of his mercy. Plato thought that heroes were born "ex
erotos Theon", from the love of God; divine love brings forth an heroic
Christian into the world; all outward mercies are streams of God's goodness,
but those are but trifles if compared with this. There is as much of God in
imparting the holiness of his nature as in imputing the righteousness of his
soul. We are justified by Christ, quickened by grace, saved by grace; grace is
the womb of every spiritual blessing. To be delivered from places and company wherein
we have occasions and temptations to sin, is an act which God owns as the fruit
of his mercy: 'I brought thee out of the land of Ur of the Chaldees,' Gen. xv.
7, an idolatrous place; it is a greater fruit of his goodness to be delivered
from a nature which is the seed-plot of sin. 'He heals our backslidden nature,'
because he 'loves us freely.' It is therefore called grace, which is not only
goodness and mercy, but goodness with a more beautiful varnish and ornamental
dress.
(1.) Therefore in this take notice of the
peculiarity of mercy. Such a goodness that not one fallen angel ever had, or
ever shall have a mite of; neither did mercy excite one good thought in God of
new polishing any of those rebellious creatures; mercy cast no eye upon them,
but justice left them to their malicious obstinacy. That the rivers of living
water should refuse to run in such a channel, or flow out of such a belly, to
run in the heart of a man more muddy! As peculiar grace pitched upon the very
flesh of Christ, to be limited to the second person, so the like grace pitches
upon this or that particular soul, to be united to the body of Christ. That
singular love which chose Christ for the head, chose some men in him to be his
members: 'Chosen us in him,' Eph. i. 4. And the anointing which is upon the
head is poured out by such a peculiarity of love upon the members, not only by
an act of his power as God, but by an act of appropriated goodness, thy God,
Heb. i. 9. God anoints his fellows with that holy gracious unction, as their
God, not only as God; for anointing him as the head, under that particular
consideration, he anoints also his fellows, his members, under the same
consideration too, because he is as well their God, the God of the members, as
well as the God of the head, for they are his fellows in that unction; the
difference lies in the greater portion of grace given to the human nature of
Christ. And the apostle Peter, 1 Peter i. 3, intimates in his thanksgiving to
God, that God begot us as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: 'Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' the paternal affection he bears to
Christ being the ground of the regeneration of his people; the paternal
affection first pitching upon Christ, then upon others in him. Indeed, it is a
peculiar affection. In his mercy to the world, he acts as a rector or governor,
in that relation he proposes laws, makes offers of peace, urges them in his
word, strives with men by his Spirit, enduing men with reason, and deals with
them as rational creatures; he uses affections and mercies, which might soften
their hearts, did they not wilfully indulge themselves in their hardness. This
is his rectoral mercy, or his mercy as a governor, and as much as his relation
of a governor can oblige him to. If men will not change their lives, is God
bound as a governor to force them to it, or not rather to punish them for it?
But in regeneration there is a choicer affection, whereby, besides the relation
of a governor, he puts on that of a father, and makes an inward and thorough
change in some which he has chosen into the relation of children. As a father,
who cannot persuade his son lying under a mortal distemper to take that physic
which is necessary for saving his life, will compel him to it, open his month,
and pour it in; but as he is a governor of his servant, he will provide it for
him, and propose it to him. To do thus is kindness to his servant, though he
does not manifest so peculiar an affection as he does to his son. God governs
men as he is the author of nature; he renews men as he is the author of grace;
he is the lawgiver and governor; it does not follow that where he is so he
should be the new creator too; this is a peculiar indulgence.
(2.) As there is a peculiarity of mercy, so
there is the largeness of his mercy and goodness in this work. It was his
goodness to create us, but a full sea of goodness made us new creatures: 1
Peter i. 3, 'Who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to 'a
lively hope,' "kata to polu autou eleos". His own mercy, without any
other motive; much mercy, without any parsimony, not an act of ordinary
goodness, but the deepest bowels of kindness, an everlasting spring of
goodness, an exuberance of goodness. The choice love he bears to them in
election cannot be without some real act; it is a vain love that does not
operate; one great part of affection is to imitate the party beloved; but since
that is unworthy of God to imitate a corrupt creature, he performs the other
act of love, which is to assimilate us to himself, and bring us into a state of
imitation of him, endowing us with principles of resemblance to him. It is
abundant mercy to love them; it is much more goodness to render them worthy of
his love, and inspire them with those qualities, as effects of his love of
benevolence, which may be an occasion of his love of complacency. Worldly
mercies do many times, yea, for the most part (if you view the whole globe of
the earth) consist with his hatred, but this is a beam from a clear sun. At
best other benefits are but the mercies of his hand, this of his heart. In
those he makes men like others of a higher rank, in this like himself.
[1.] It is a goodness greater than that in
creation. It is more an act of kindness to reform that which is deformed, than
to form it at the beginning, because it is more to have a happy than a simple
being. To repair what is decayed is a testimony of greater goodness than at
first to raise it. Creation is terminated to the good of a mutable nature,
regeneration is terminated to a supernatural good, and partaking of the divine
nature. The creation was an emanation of his goodness, never entitled the work
of his grace. Man's first uprightness was an impress of God; his second
uprightness is far more pleasing to him, as being the fruit of his Son's death,
wherein all his attributes are more highly glorified. It is a regeneration 'by
the resurrection of Christ,' 1 Peter i. 3; that being the perfection of it,
includes his death, which is the foundation of it, as the perfection of a thing
includes the beginning. God pronounced all the structures of the first creation
good, but not with those magnificent titles of his delighting in it, forming it
for himself, that it might show forth his praise, which expressions testify a
greater efflux of his goodness in this second creation. Nor did Christ ever say
his delight was in that, or in that one man Adam, but in the sons of men, of
apostate Adam, as to be redeemed and renewed by him after their apostasy: Prov.
viii. 31, 'My delights were with the sons of men.' What sons of men? The
exhortation, ver. 32, intimates it, those that are his children renewed by him
that hearken to him and keep his ways. God pronounced it good, but not his
treasure, his portion, his inheritance, his segullah, his house, his
diadem. All those things which he made, even the noblest heaven, as well as the
lowest earth, he overlooks and speaks slightly of them: Isa. lxvi. 1, 2, 'All
those things has my hand made, and all those things have been,' &c., to fix
his eyes, "avit", upon a contrite spirit, a renewed nature. He speaks
of them as things passed away, and is intent only upon the new creation; values
it above heaven and earth, and all the ceremonial worship. What is the object
of his greatest estimation partakes of a greater efflux of his goodness to make
it so. And the apostle Peter aggrandises this abundant mercy in regeneration,
from the term, 'unto a lively hope;' not such an uncertain hope as Adam had
when he was fullest of his mutable uprightness; a living hope, "elpida
dzosan", that grows up more and more into life, till it comes to an
inheritance that fades not away as Adam's did. Surely there is more of bowels
in the Spirit's brooding over a sinful soul, to bring forth this beautiful
frame, than in brooding over the confused mass to bring forth a world.
[2.] All the grace and goodness God has is
employed in it. In the creation you cannot say, all the goodness of God was
displayed, as not all his power nor all his wisdom: for as to his power he
might have made millions of worlds inconceivably more beautiful and more wisely
contrived; for though there be no defect of wisdom and power, yet neither of
those attributes were exerted to that height that they might have been. So for
his goodness, he might have made millions of more angels and men than he did
create, with as (and more) illustrious natures; for a man may conceive
something more than God has displayed in the creation, as to the extensiveness
of his perfections at least. But in this God has displayed, as it may seem, the
utmost of his grace, for no man or angel can conceive a higher grace than what
God shows in this, of beginning in man a likeness to himself, and perfecting it
hereafter to as high a pitch as a creature is capable of. Therefore called
'unsearchable riches of Christ,' Eph. hi. 7. A further good cannot be imagined
or found out than what is there displayed. Therefore the apostle Peter speaks
of God as effectually calling us into his eternal glory by Christ, under the
title of ' the God of all grace,' 1 Peter v. 10, which calling includes all
preparation for glory. All grace does not less fit us for it, than call us to
it, there is more of grace in fitting us for it than barely in calling us to
it; and the call itself has more of grace in it than the giving the possession
of that inheritance you are called unto. It is not so high a favour in a prince
actually to set his royal bride in the throne with him, as to call her to and
prepare her for so high a dignity. To prepare a soul for it by regeneration is
an act of pure grace; to give it after a preparation for it, is an act of truth
as well as grace; nothing obliged him to the first, his promise binds him to
the latter. What if I should say, this renewing of us, and subduing our sins in
us, is a greater act of grace than a bare remission! Micah vii. 18, 19, seems
to favour it. To pardon us is an act of his delightful mercy; but to subdue our
iniquities is an act of his most tender compassion. Mercy is there joined with
pardon, and compassion with subduing And the latter expression, 'Thou wilt cast
all their sins into the depths of the sea,' may refer to both those acts of
grace, against the guilt and filth of sin.
[3.] The freeness of his mercy is manifest
in it. It is as free as election: Eph. i. 3, 4, 'Who has blessed us with all
spiritual blessings' (of which regeneration is none of the meanest), 'according
as he has chosen us in him', "kathos exelexato". It is as free in the
stream as it is in the fountain. Jesus Christ is as freely formed in us, as we
were freely chosen in him, as freely, quoad nos, as to us, not in
regard of Christ, who merited the former though not the latter. It is his own
mercy, 1 Peter i. 3, 'his own will,' James i. 18, not moved by any other, as we
do many things by the will of others when our own are not free, in which are
mixed acts. It is in regard of this freeness called grace. Supposing God would
create man, and for such an end as to enjoy blessedness, he could not create
him otherwise than with a universal rectitude, because, had God created him
with a temper contrary to his law, he had been the author of his sin. Some
therefore call not the righteousness of Adam grace, because it was a perfection
due to his nature upon his creation. But there was no necessity upon God to
bestow new creating grace, after he had stripped himself of the righteousness
of his first creation. And also supposing God will restore man to that end from
which he fell, and refit him for that blessedness, he cannot fit him otherwise
than by restoring him to that righteousness, as a means of attaining that
blessedness. Yet both these are free, because the original foundation of both
is free. God might choose whether he would create man when he was nothing, and
choose whether he would restore man when he was fallen. Yet there is more
freedom in this latter than in the former, in regard of the measures of the new
created righteousness, and in regard of the immutability of it, in regard also
of demerit. Adam's dust, before creation, as it could merit nothing, so it had
an advantage above us that it could not lie under demerit. But we, after the
fall, are in a state of damnation, children of wrath, so that regeneration is
not a creating us from nothing, but recovering us from a state worse than
nothing. In regard that man was miserable, he was capable of mercy; but as he
was a criminal, he was an object of severity. That is free mercy to renew any
man by grace, when he might have damned him by justice, to work him for glory
when he had wrought himself for damnation. The apostle therefore excludes all
works whatsoever from any meritoriousness in this case: Titus iii. 5, 'Not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved
us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.' I say, he
excludes all works, because not one work, as good, was in being before the
renewal of the soul, for so verse 3 plainly implies, when he concludes all men,
himself too, in a state incapable of doing anything that was good; the honour
of his truth indeed excites him to perfect it, but his grace only, without any
other motive, moves him to bestow it. All the grace you have in regeneration
sprung only from this; the righteousness you are arrayed with, the flames of
love in your hearts, the flights of your faith, cost you nothing, they were all
the births of love. Goodness decreed all when you were nothing, grace formed
all when you were worse than nothing, your faith is 'the faith of God's elect,'
Titus i. 1. New creatures were chosen to faith by grace, and by the same grace
was faith formed in the womb of the soul; electing grace preceded, renewing
grace followed, the stream cannot be merited when the spring was free.
Regeneration is an accessory to election. No man can merit the principle,
therefore not the accessory.
2. As mercy and goodness, so the sovereignty
of God is illustrious in this work. 'Of God,' in the text, is 'of the will of
God.' The covenant runs in a royal style: 'I will put my Spirit into them; I
will give a heart of flesh,' of my own free motion and good pleasure, like the
patents of princes. God reserves this in his own power, to give to whom he
pleases; Cameron says, that faith, which is a great constitutive part of
regeneration, was not purchased meritoriously by Christ's death; and though
Christ does give us faith as well as repentance, yet he does that, not as
considered as a satisfier of God's justice in his death, but as God's
commissioner in his exaltation, being empowered by God to give the conditions
upon which they agreed together in the first compact about the work of
mediation, unto all those that God had given him to satisfy for. Whether this
opinion be well grounded or no, I will not determine; yet the making it depend
solely upon election, and to be given as a fruit of election, that hereby we
may be partakers of Christ, makes it more fully depend upon the sovereignty of
God. God renews when he pleases. 'The wind blows where it lists,' John iii. 8.
To some he affords means, to others not; he deals not with every nation as he dealt
with Israel. In some, he works by means; to others, he gives only the means
without any inward work; it is his pleasure that he works upon any one to will,
his good pleasure that he gives to and one to do: Philip. ii. 13, 'of his good
pleasure.' Some hear the word, others the Spirit in the word; some feel the
striking of the air upon their ear, others the stamp of the Spirit upon their
hearts. Who chose this rough stone to hew and polish, and let others lie in the
quarry? Who frames this for a statue, a representation of himself, and leaves
another upon the pavement? What does all this result from, but his sovereign
pleasure?
(1.) No ultimate reason can be rendered for
this distinction, but God's sovereignty. We can render an immediate reason of
some actions of God: why the heavens are round, because that is the most
capacious figure, and fittest for motion; why the sun is the centre of the
world, as some think, because it may, at a convenient distance, enlighten the
stars above, and quicken the things below; why our hearts are in the midst of
our bodies, because they may more commodiously afford heat to all the members;
so also, why God loved Adam, because he saw his own image in him; why he sends
judgments upon the world, because of sin; why he saves believers and condemns
unbelievers, because they receive the grace of Christ, those reject it. We have
not recourse immediately to God's will for a reason; the nature of the things
themselves affords us one, obvious to us. But no reason can be rendered of other
actions of God but his good pleasure. Why he chose Abraham above other men, and
delivered him from Ur of the Chaldees; why Israel above other nations, since
all other men and nations descended from Adam and Noah, and they were in their
natures equally corrupt with others; they were not in themselves better than
others, nor other nations worse than they; so in Esau and Jacob, why the elder
should serve the younger, since they both issued from the same parents, lay in
the same womb, were equally depraved in their nature, had original sin equally
conveyed to them by their parents: no reason can be rendered but the will of
God. So, if it be asked, why men are condemned, because they do not believe.
Why do they not believe? Because they will not. God has given them means and
faculties. If you ask, why God did not give them grace to believe and turn
their wills, no other answer can be given but because he will not. It is his
free will to choose some and not others. Election is put upon his pleasure:
Eph. i. 5, 'Predestinated according to the good pleasure of his will;' and the
making known the mystery of his will is put upon his pleasure: Eph. i. 9,
'Having made known unto us the mystery of his will according to his good
pleasure.' As God regards us absolutely, it is rather mercy than his good
pleasure. Why has he changed our wills? Because he loved us, and bare good will
to us in his everlasting purpose, to which he was incited by his own mercy. But
if we compare ourselves with others, and ask, why he renews this man and not
that, then it is rather an act of the sovereign liberty of his will, for there
cannot be the result of any reason from any thing else; he pitches his
compassion where and upon whom he pleases. The apostle joins mercy and this
sovereignty of his will together: Rom. ix. 15, 'I will have mercy on whom I
will have mercy; and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.' He
is so absolute a sovereign, that he will give no account of these matters but
his own good pleasure. Why he renews any man is merely voluntary; why he saves
renewed men is just; why he justifies those that believe is justice to Christ
and mercy to them; but why he bestows faith on any is merely the good pleasure
of his will. The pharisees believed not, because they were not of Christ's
sheep, John x. 26; that is, they were not given to Christ by the Father, as is
intimated, verse 29. And the prosperity of those which are given to Christ is
resolved wholly into the pleasure of God: 'The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper
in his hand,' Isa. liii. 10. In all our searches into the cause of this, we
must rest in his sovereign pleasure; our Saviour himself renders this only as a
reason of his distinguishing mercy, wherein himself does, and therefore we
must, acquiesce: Mat. xi. 27, 'Even so, Father, for so it pleased thee.'
(2.) We may well do so, because he is no
debtor to any man in the way of grace. There is nothing due to man but death;
that is his wages; the other is a gift: Rom. vi. 23, 'To you it is given to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to them it is not given,' Mat.
xiii. 11. Who shall control him in the disposal of his own goods? 'Who shall
say unto him, What dost thou?' Grace is his own treasure; if he gives the
riches of it to any, it is his pleasure; if he will not bestow a mite on any
man, it is no wrong; 'if any man has given to him, it shall be recompensed to
him again,' Rom. xi. 35. It is not unjust with God to deny every man grace; it
is not then unjust to deny a great part of men this grace: 'Who has enjoined
him his way?' says Job; or, 'Who can say, Thou hast wrought iniquity?' Job
xxxvi. 23. He is not to be taught by man how to govern the world, neither can
any man justly blame him, if they judge aright of his actions. Though every man
is bound to endeavour the conversion of others, and every good man has so much
charity that he would turn all to righteousness if he could, and though the
love of God is infinitely greater than man's, it cannot be argued from thence
that therefore God should renew every man. This charity in man is a debt he
owes to his neighbour by communion of blood, upon which the law of charity is
founded, which obliges him to endeavour the happiness and welfare of his
neighbour; but God is free from the engagements of any law, but the liberty of
his own will; he is under no government but his own; he has none superior, none
equal with him, to enjoin him his way, and to prescribe him rules and methods.
If he gives any favour to man, it is his pleasure; if man improves it well, God
is not indebted to him, and obliged to give him more, no more than a father is
bound to give his son a new stock, because he has improved well the first he
has entrusted him with; it depends only upon his pleasure.
(3.) God's proceedings in this case do wholly
declare it. In the first gift of his people to Christ, he acted like a God
greater than all in a way of super-eminent sovereignty: 'My Father which gave
them me is greater than all', John x. 29. He acts as a potter with his clay; he
softens one heart, and leaves another to its natural hardness. He converts Paul
a persecutor, but none of the other pharisees who spurred him on in that fury
and commissioned him to it; he snatches some from the embracements of lust,
while he suffers others to run their race to hell. David, by grace, is made a
man after God's own heart, and Saul left to be a man after his own will; some
he changes in the heat of their pursuit of sinful pleasures, others he wounds
to death by his judgments. The reason of the latter is deserved justice; the
reason of the other is undeserved pleasure. He chooses the mean things of the
world to be highest in his favour, and passes over those that the world esteems
most excellent. 'Not many wise, not many mighty,' is his sovereign method. The
amiable endowments esteemed by the men of the world have no influence upon him.
He acts in this way with his own people; he gives sometimes to will, when he
does not give presently to do; he distributes greater measures of grace to one
than to another; he sometimes excites them by his grace, sometimes lets them
lie as logs before him, that he may be owned by them to be a free agent. And
further, it must needs be thus, because God does not work in regeneration as a
natural agent, and put forth his strength to the utmost; as the sun shines, and
the fire burns, ad extremum virium, unless a cloud interpose to hinder
the one, or water quench the other, but as an arbitrary agent, who exerts his
power according to his own will, and withholds it according to his pleasure.
For there are two acts of his sovereign will: one whereby he does command men
to do their duty, promises rewards, and threatens punishment, but the subject
is to be disposed to do God's will of precept. Here comes in another act of his
sovereignty, whereby he wills the disposing such and such hearts to the
accepting of his grace, and does will not to give others that grace, but leave
them to themselves. This we see practised by God almost in every day's
experience.
3. The truth of God is apparent in this
work. Truth to his own purpose: 1 Tim. i. 9, 'Who has called us with a holy
calling, according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Jesus
Christ before the world began.' Sovereignty first singles this or that man out;
and truth to that firm and immutable counsel, and that resolve in his own mind,
steps in to excite his holiness, wisdom, and power, to make every such person
conformed to the image of his Son. It was not from any truth respecting any
condition annexed to any promise he had made which he might find in the
creature, for the apostle plainly excludes it, 'not according to our work'; for
what motion can our work in a state of nature cause in God but that of anger
and aversion arising from truth to his threatening, the condition whereof is
fulfilled by us, but not one mite of good fruit that could as a condition
challenge this great work at the hands of the truth of God by virtue of his
promise. His truth to his threatening would have raised up thoughts of
destroying men; his truth to his purpose carried on his design of effectually
calling them. It is not an engagement of truth to his creature, but of truth to
himself. So that if you ask why he has Peter, Paul, and others, since many
better conditioned than they have rejected the gospel, the answer is, because
he had so purposed in himself; and he is faithful, and cannot deny his own
counsel, for that were to deny himself, and that eternal idea in his own mind:
2 Tim. ii. 13, 'He is faithful, and cannot deny himself,' in regard of his purpose,
in regard of his absolute promise. Truth to his promise; his promise to his
Son, for so Titus i. 2 is principally to be understood: 'In hope of eternal
life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.' There was a
donation of some made to Christ, and a donation of grace to Christ for them,
deposited in his hands as a treasure to be dispensed to every one of them in
their proper time. His truth comes in upon this double donative: a donative of
grace to them in Christ, before the world began, which would be but as a
useless rusty treasure, if not bestowed upon those for whom it was entrusted in
his hands; a donative of some, according to this purpose, to Christ, whose
death, and resurrection, and purchase, would be ineffectual, if those thus
given were not in time engrafted in him, and renewed by him, to be made
partakers of all that which he purchased and preserved for them. Jesus Christ
was to have a seed by covenant, a people to be conformed to his image. The
issue then of forming a people for his seed, is the effect of God's truth to
Christ. And consequent to this antecedent purpose in himself, and promise to
Christ, he gives him an order to bring in those that were thus designed to be
his sheep, which he calls his sheep by right of donation, before they were
renewed: my sheep, by right of gift from my Father, mine by right of purchase
at my death, mine by right of possession at their effectual call, these I must
bring in; not I may, but I must; and they shall hear my voice: John x. 16,
'Other sheep I have; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice;' not
they may, but they shall be inclined to comply with my word and call. Satan and
their own lusts shall not hinder them from coming unto me, but they shall be
overruled by a powerful Spirit. So that there is truth to his purpose, truth to
his promise to Christ' truth to the depositum in Christ's hands, truth
to his word published, that he would give a new heart. So that whatsoever heart
his work is wrought in, it is a manifest effect of the truth of God to himself
and his Christ. The gift of grace, in possession, is a necessary consequent of
that gift of it, in purpose, before the world began.
4. The wisdom of God appears in this work.
The secrets of wisdom shine forth in the great concerns of the soul in Christ,
who is made wisdom principally to us in our sanctification, as well as
righteousness and redemption. Wisdom in the imputation of righteousness, in the
draught of sanctification, and in the perfection of it in a complete
redemption; wisdom, like thread, runs through every part of the web. The new
birth is the great wisdom of the creature; by this he becomes wise, since the
Scripture entitles all fools without it. The inspiration of this wisdom can own
no other but divine wisdom for the author. It is his own wisdom; for 'Who has
been his counsellor?' Rom. xi. 34. He works all things according to the counsel
of his own will, freely, wisely; a work of his will, a work of his
understanding: Eph. i. 11, 12, 'Who works all things according to the counsel
of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory,' that the glory
of the Father may shine out in us. If all things are thus wrought with the
choicest counsel, much more the rarest work of God in the world. If all things
are wrought with counsel, because he will have a praise from them, much more
that from whence he expects to gather the greatest crop of glory. The bringing
us to trust in Christ is for the praise of his glory; a glory redounds to him,
because there is nothing of our own in it, but all his; a farther glory
redounds to him, because it is in the wisest manner. It is to the praise and
the glory of his goodness in the act of his will; to the praise of the glory of
his wisdom in the act of his counsel. There was a mystery of wisdom in the
first secretion and singling out this or that person; a revelation of wisdom in
the preparations to it, and formation of it. If there be much of his counsel in
the minute passages of his providence in the lowest creatures, which are the
subjects of that providence, much more must there be in the framing the soul to
be a living monument of his glory. It is not a new moulding the outward case of
the body, but the inward jewel wrapped up from the view of men; the spirit of
the mind, which, being more excellent, requires more of skill for the new
forming of it.
(1.) The nature of the new birth declares it
to be an effect of his wisdom. It is a building a divine temple, a spiritual
tabernacle, for his own residence: 'ye are God's building,' 1 Cor. iii. 9.
Strength will not build a house without art to contrive and proportion the
materials; skill is the chief requisite of an architect. The highest pieces of
art come from the most excellent idea in the creature. The beautiful fabric of
grace is modelled by the wisest idea in God; that which is glorious in the
erection, supposes excellent skill in the contrivance. Every renewed man is a
'lively stone:' 1 Pet. ii. a, 'Ye also as lively stones,' every one of you
polished and carved by the wise Creator for an everlasting statue. It is he
that has 'wrought us to the self-same thing,' 2 Cor. v. 6,
"katergasamenos"; polished us and curiously wrought us, who were
rough stones, covered with the rubbish of sin. As a wise builder, he lays the
foundation in sound habits, whereon to raise a superstructure of gracious
actions. The counterpart in the heart is no less a fruit of his wisdom than the
law in the tables of stone; wisdom in the first framing the law, wisdom also in
the deep imprinting of it. That which enlightens the eyes, and makes wise to
salvation, can be entitled to no other original cause than divine wisdom. The
soul is a rational work of God. Surely, then, that which is the soul of the
soul, the glory of the creature, the preparation for happiness, more pleasing
to God than the brightest nature, than the natural frame of the highest soul,
that which is the pleasure and delight, must be the fruit, too, of infinite
wisdom. Bare effects of power are not the immediate objects of God's special
delight.
(2.) The means of it declare it to be a
fruit of his wisdom. Christ the exemplar has the treasures of wisdom; grace
copied from it is part of those treasures. The gospel, the instrument, is 'the
wisdom of God,' as well as 'the power of God,' 1 Cor. ii. 7. Divine skill
framed the model, reared the building, no less sows the seed in the heart. What
did partake of wisdom in the contrivance, progress, all the parts and methods
of it, partakes of the same in the inward operations of it upon the soul.
(3.) The manner of it speaks it to be so. In
regard of the enemies he has to deal with, there must be prudence to
countermine the deep and unsearchable plots of the powers of darkness. As there
is the strength of sin within, the might of Satan without, as fit subjects for
his power, so there are the stratagems of Satan, the subtleties and deceits of
the flesh, as a fit occasion for his almighty skill against hellish policy. In
regard also of his working upon the soul, he works upon those that are so contrary
to his design without imposing upon their faculties; he moves them according to
their physical nature, though contrary to their moral nature; he makes us do
willingly what we would not; he so tunes the strings that they speak out
willingly what naturally they are most unfit for. The Spirit acts wisely in the
revealing to us the knowledge of Christ, as Eph. i. 17, 'The spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of him,' which may note the manner of his
acting in the revelation, which is the first work of the soul, as well as the
effect it does produce, though I suppose the effect is principally meant. Some
question the wisdom of God in acting so upon the will as not to lease it to its
own indifference in this change. What reason is there to question his wisdom?
Do not the angels in heaven admire God's wisdom as well as his grace, who has
immutably fixed them to that which is good? Do they question the wisdom of God
for so happy a confirmation of them against that indifference which destroyed some
of their fellows by creation? But is there not an evident art in this work, to
make the will willing that had no affection to this change; to fit the key so
to all the wards that not one is disordered; to move us contrary to our corrupt
reason, yet bring us to that pass to acknowledge we had reason to be so moved;
to move our faculties one by another as wheels in a watch; to present spiritual
things with such an evident light as engages our understandings to believe that
which they would not believe before, and our wills to embrace that which our
affections gainsay? It must therefore be a fruit of divine skill since it is a
fruit of divine teaching, John vi. 45.
(4.) There is a greater wisdom in it than in
the creation of the world. The higher the work rises, the more of skill
appears. It is a divine art to make man to live the life of plants in his
growth, the life of beasts in his sense, the life of angels in his mind; more
it is then to make him live the life of God in his grace. Man in his body
partakes of earth, in his soul of heaven, in his grace of the heaven of
heavens, of the God of heaven. The grace in the new birth is nearer the
likeness of God than the figure of men in the first birth. God therefore does
more observe the numbers and measures in the second creation than he did in the
first. Man was the most excellent piece in the lower creation, therefore more
of art in the framing of him than in the whole celestial and elementary world.
The glorious bodies of sun, moon, and stars had not such marks upon them. The
nearer resemblance anything has to God, the more of wisdom as well as power is
signified in the make of it.
(5.) The holiness of God is seen in this
work. The day of God's power breaks not upon us in the change of our wills,
without his appearance in 'the beauties of holiness,' Ps. cx. 3. The Spirit is
called a spirit of holiness, not only as he is the efficient, but as he is the
pattern, and like fire transforms into his own nature; for that which is born
of the Spirit is spirit. The law in the tables of stone was an image; the law
in the heart is an extract of God's holiness. Our first creation in a mutable
state was according to his own image, Gen. i. 26. Our second creation is more
exactly like him, in a gracious immutability. The holiness in Christ's human
nature was an effect of the holiness of God; the holiness we have then in
resemblance to Christ, must be a fruit of the same perfection. If we are
renewed according to his image, it must be according to his holiness. To be
merciful and just, is to have a moral image; to be holy, is to have a divine.
The apostle intimates this in his exhortation, we must be holy in serving him,
because he was holy in calling us: 1 Peter i. 16, 'As he which has called you
is holy, so be ye holy,' &c. In this respect, God calls himself, not only a
holy one, but the holy one of Israel: Isa. xliii. 15, 'I am the Lord your holy
one, the creator of Israel, your king.' He is not only holy in himself, but
displays his holiness in them, by an act of a new creation. By creator
is not meant, his being the creator of them, as he is of all, even of wicked
men and devils; but implies a peculiar relation to them, as distinguished from
others. He is the creator of devils, holy in his actions towards devils, but
not their holy one by any inward renovation, or consecrating them to
himself, as he is the holy one of Israel. As he is a God in covenant, he is our
God, therefore our God as he is a holy God, as well as he is a powerful God,
communicating the one as well as the other in a covenant way, therefore the
prophet Habakkuk joins them both together, 'O Lord my God, my holy one,' Hab.
i. 12. His holiness is no less necessary for the felicity of his people, than
his mercy and power. What happiness could his mercy move, his wisdom contrive,
or his power effect, without the communication of his holiness? Mercy could not
of itself fit a man for it, nor power give a man possession of it, without
holiness attiring him with all those graces which prepare him for it. God, as
sovereign, chose us; as merciful, pardons us; as wise, guides us; as powerful,
protects us; as true, makes good his promises to us; but as holy, cleanses us
from our old habits, makes us vessels of honour, filled with the savoury and
delicious fruits of his Spirit, his pleasant things. The implantation of grace
in the heart, is no less an effect of his holiness, than the preservation of it
is, which our Saviour intimates, when in his petition for it he gives his
Father rather the title of holy, than of any other attribute: John xvii. 11,
'Holy Father, keep through thy own name.'
6. The power of God appears in this work.
'Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one
that was born blind,' John ix. 32; neither was it ever heard that any man could
open the understanding of one that was born dark. Everything that pertains to
life and godliness, of which regeneration is not the meanest, is the work of
divine power: 2 Peter i. 3, 'According as his divine power has given to us all
things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who has
called us to glory and virtue;' glory and virtue, by a hendiadis, for a
glorious virtue; and the apostle adds, that this calling was an effect of a
glorious power; it is not "eis", but "dia", through
glory and virtue; the same preposition "dia", which, as joined with
knowledge, is translated through; as much as to say, through a glorious
virtue or power, both "agete" and virtus, signifying valour
and strength in their several languages. When God hardens a man, he only
withdraws his grace. But a divine virtue is necessary for the cure of our
hereditary disease. There is no great force required to cut a dead man, but to
raise him requires an extraordinary power. We may as well deny this work to be
a new creation, a resurrection, as deny it to be an act of divine power. There
is a word that calls; there is also a power to work: 1 Thes. i. 5. 'Our gospel
came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost;' that
is, the power of the Holy Ghost. There was not only grace in the word, to woo,
but the power of the Holy Ghost in it, to overcome the heart. There is not only
an act of an almighty Spirit, but an act of his almightyness. The hand of the
Lord created the world, 'the heavens are the work of his fingers,' Ps. viii. 3;
but grace is the work of 'his arms,' Isa. liii. 1. It may be said of the first
grace in the new birth, as it was of Reuben, Gen. xlix. 3, it is his 'might,
the beginning of his strength, and the excellency of his power.' Though
ministerial gifts were as excellent as Paul's, whose preaching was with
demonstration and power, and who knew the readiest ways to men's hearts, if a
man ever did, yet 'the excellency of the power was of God;' and when he
brandished his spiritual weapons, they were only 'mighty through God,' 2 Cor.
x. 4. Though the declaration was his, yet the working was Christ's, Rom. xv.
18; none of his people are willing, till the day of his power, Ps. cx. 3.
(1.) It is as great, yea, greater power, than
that put forth in creation. It is as great; it is the introduction of another
form, not in a way of any action or fashion, but in such a manner as was in the
creation, that is, by the mighty operation of God; otherwise it could not be
called a new creature though it might be called a new thing. You call not that
which is made by the art or power of man, as a watch, a clock, a house, a new
creature; for there is nothing of creation in them, but art and industry,
setting the pieces of matter, created to their hands, together in such a form
or figure. But this is called a new creature, not so much in regard of the
newness of the thing, but in regard of the power that wrought it, and the
manner of working it, being the same with that of creation. And being termed
so, it implies the exerting an efficacious power; for creation is not brought
by a cessation of action (which would be in God, if the will were only the
cause of it) but the employment of an active virtue. God does not hold his hand
in his bosom, but spreads it open, and applies it to an efficacious action.
Since it is a new creation, it implies a creator, and a creative power,
creation cannot be without both. It is a greater power expended in regeneration
than in creation; more power morally in this, than physically in that. One word
created the world; many words are combined for the new preparation of the
heart. It is easier to make a thousand glasses, than to set together one that
is dashed in pieces. It is easier with God to make a world (quoad nos,
as to our conception, for all things are alike easy with God), and create
thousands of men with his image, as bright as Adam's, than to bring that into
form which is so miserably defaced.
[1.] First, In regard of the subject, sin
has turned man into a beast, and omnipotence only can turn a bestial man into
angelical and divine. There is a less distance between the least dust and the
glorious God, than there is between the holy God and an impure sinner; sin and
grace are more contrary to one another, than aliquid and nihil,
something and nothing. A straw may with less power be made a star, than a
corrupted sinner be made a saint. In creation, God was only to put in nature,
here he is to 'put off' one that is strong, and to bring in another altogether
strange and new, it is hard to bring a man off from his old stock, and as hard
to make him nakedly to trust Christ. It is more difficult to make a man leave
his sin, than to change his opinion, since men are more in love with habitual
wickedness than with any opinion whatsoever. In regard of the indisposedness of
the soul. There is some foundation for a natural religion, there being general
notions of God and his attributes, which would administer some conclusions that
he was to be feared and reverenced; and according to these notions many cheeks
of conscience, which would induce men to some moral behaviour towards God. But
in the setting our hearts right to God, and creating them in a mediator, there
was not the least dust in nature to build upon. In the creating of Adam's body,
there was some pre-existent matter, the dust of the ground, whereof his body
has by a divine power made and organised; but we meet with no pre-existent
matter for the formation of the soul, which made him a rational creature; that
indeed was the breath of God, not engendered by any concurring cause in nature.
There is no pre-existent matter in the creature, of which this image is formed,
though there be a pre-existent subject to receive the impression of it; it is
not the rearing anything upon the foundation of nature, but introducing a
nature wholly new, which speaks almightyness. In regard of the contradiction in
the subject. The stream of man's natural reason, the principles, of self,
whereby he is guided, run counter to it, there is a pride of reason which will
not stoop to the gospel, which in man's wisdom is counted foolishness. Man is
an untamed heifer, a wild ass that snuffs up the wind, full of hatred to the
ways of God, guided by gigantic lusts, which make as great a resistance as a mountain
of brass; stoutness of heart, strong prejudices against the law of God,
fierceness of affection, drinking iniquity like water, universal madness,
resisting the spirit, hare-brained imaginations; frowardness in the will,
forwardness to evil, perversity against good; can anything, less than an
almighty power, make a universal cure? It is more easy to make men stoop to
some victorious prince, and become his vassals, than to bring men to a
submission to God and his laws, which they entertain with contempt and scorn.
Nothing obeyed God's word in the creation; though it contributed not to his
design, yet it could not oppose him, it could not swell against him, because it
has nothing. But every sinner is rebellious, disputes God's commands, fortifies
himself against his entrance, gives not up himself without a contest. This
pride is hereditary, it bore sway in the heart ever since Adam's fall, and has
prescription of as long a standing as the world to plead for possession. What
but infinite power can fling down this pride at the foot of the cross, make the
heart strike its swelling sail to Christ, and become nothing in itself, that
Christ may be all life in him, and all righteousness to him? It is only
possible to God to make a camel, with this bunch on its back, pass through a
needle's eye; no less than divine power can bring down these armies of opposite
imaginations, which have both multitude and strength (and no man knows either
their number or strength), and the whole frame of contradiction against the grace
of Christ. Our Saviour intimates this creative power in that thanksgiving to
his Father: Matt. xi. 25, 'I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,'
&c. Christ, in all his addresses to his Father, used attributes and titles
suitable to the business he insisted on. The revelation of divine knowledge to
babes, the moulding their hearts to receive it, was an act of God as he is Lord
of heaven and earth, putting forth an infinite power in the forming of it. If
God were the author of grace in the hearts of those babes, persons better
disposed, and nearer the kingdom of heaven, as he was Lord of heaven and earth,
then there must be some greater power than that of the creation of the world
put forth to conquer the wise and prudent, whose wisdom and prudence stands
armed in the breaches of nature to beat off the assaults of the gospel.
[2.] In regard of the opposition of the
present possessors. The chasing out an armed devil, that has kept the palace in
peace so long, must be by a power superior to his own, Luke xi. 21, 22. This
great Goliath has his armour about him, has had long possession and dearest
affections; the impulses of natural concupiscence take his part; he has his
alluring baits, his pleasing proposals; the world and the flesh are linked with
him in a league to hinder the restoration of the soul to Christ, and the
restoration of God's image to the soul. A threefold cord is not easily broken.
It must be a power superior to those three great posters in conjunction, that
must bind the strong man; and casting him out, and spoiling his goods, are acts
of power, Mat. xii. 29. Satan is too strong to be easily cast out, and the
flesh loves him too dearly to be easily divorced from him; he is never like to
lay down his arms by persuasions; though all the angels in heaven should
entreat him, he would not give up one foot of his empire. Nay, though what God
does propose has a greater weight of goodness, pleasure, and profit in itself,
than what those three great impostors can offer, yet, since reason is weak and
mightily corrupted under the conduct of sense, which has an alliance with
Satan's proposals, and first sucks them in, it is not like to meet with any
entertainment, as being against the interest of the flesh; and the will being
backed with two such powerful seconds, as Satan and the world, to assist it in
its refusals. Indeed, if he that is in the regenerate, were not greater and
more powerful than he that is in the world, they would not be able to resist
his allurements and subtilties, 1 John iv. 4. The triumphs of Christ at his
ascension declare his power in his acquisition; with a strong hand he broke the
chain of sinners, and 'led captivity captive' before he gave gifts to men, Ps.
lxviii. 18. He does the like in giving grace to the heart; he rides upon his
white horse in the power of almighty grace, when he conquers the enmity in the
soul, as well as when he overcomes the enemies of his church, Rev. vi. 2.
(2.) It is a power as great as that which
wrought in the resurrection of Christ. It is considerable how loftily the
apostle sets it out: Eph. i. 19, 20, 'And what is the exceeding greatness of
his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his
own right hand in heavenly places.' Exceeding greatness of his power,
"huperthallon", with an hyperbole, according to the working or
efficaciousness of his mighty power, noting the infusion of faith in the soul
by a powerful impression, 'according to the working of the might or strength.'
One word was not enough to signify the great power working: it is strength with
a greater edge upon it; as when a man would fetch a mighty blow, he stirs up
all his strength, sets his teeth on edge to summon all his spirits to assist
his arm. The power of God in creation of nature is never in the whole Scripture
set forth so magnificently as his power in the creation of grace is in this
place. The apostle picks not out any examples of God's power in his ordinary
works, or that power in lesser miracles which exceeded the power of nature, to
illustrate this power by. He does not say, It is that power whereby we work
miracles or speak with tongues: no; neither is it that power whereby our
Saviour wrought such miracles when he was in the world. It is a more
illustrious power than the giving sight to the blind, speech to the dumb,
hearing to the deaf, yea, or life to a putrefied carcass, this is an
extraordinary power. But yet this gracious power is higher than all this, for it
is as great as that which wrought the two greatest miracles that ever were
acted in the creation as great as the raising Jesus Christ perfectly dead in
the grave, and having the weight of the sin of the world upon him, and as great
as that power which, after the raising of him, set him in his human nature at
his right hand, above principalities and powers, above the whole angelical
state, as much as to say, As great as all that power which wrought the whole
scene of the redemption, from the foundation-stone to the top-stone. It is such
an unconquerable power, whereby God brings about all his decrees which
terminated in Christ. Some say this power is not exercised in the begetting
faith, but in the faithful after faith is begun. It is very strange that a less
power is necessary to beget, than to preserve a thing after it is brought into
being. And the same power is requisite to raise the heart of the most moral man
under heaven out of the grave of corrupted nature, as well as those that are
furthest in their dispositions from God. As, had not our Saviour had the weight
of the sins of men upon him, had he been dead but an hour or two, lain in the
grave with a little loose or light sand cast upon him, it would have required
infinite power to have restored him to life. The apostle mentions this in other
places, though not so highly as in this: Rom. vi. 4 'That like as Christ was
raised up by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of
life.' It must be understood thus. Even so we, being raised up by the glory of
the Father, should walk in newness of life. And it may be partly the meaning of
the apostle Peter, 1 Peter i. 3, 'Who has begotten us to a lively hope by, or
through, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,' not only as the foundation
of our hopes, but by a power conformable to that which raised Christ from the
dead. I would only by the way note, that this infers a higher operation than
merely an exhortation and suasion; for would any man say of a philosopher that
had taught him morality, that he had displayed in him the exceeding greatness
of his power, only upon the account of advising and counselling him to reform
his manners, and live more soberly and honestly in the world? Our Saviour
esteemed this one thing greater than all the other miracles he wrought, and
declared himself to be the Christ more by this than by any other. When John
sent to know who he was. he returns no other account than the list of his
miracles: 'The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached,' Luke vii. 20.
That which brings up the rear as the greatest is, 'the poor
"euangelidzontai", are evangelised;' it is not to be taken actively
of the preaching of the gospel, but passively, that they were wrought upon by
the gospel, and became gospelled people, transformed into the mould of it, else
it would bear no analogy to the other miracles; the deaf hear, and the dead
were raised; they had not exhortations to hear and live, but the effects were
wrought in them; so those words import not only the preaching of the gospel to
them, but the powerful operation of the gospel in them. This greatest miracle
in the catalogue is the only miracle our Saviour has left in the world since
the cessation of all the rest.
I have insisted the longer upon these
perfections in God apparent in this work.
1. To stir up every renewed person to a
thankful frame towards God, that he should engage his choicest attributes for
the good of a poor creature. To what purpose did the apostle so long and so
highly speak of the power of God in raising them from a spiritual death, but
that they should acknowledge it, and admire God for it? It cannot but raise
high admirations and adorations of God, to consider how mercy moved for them,
sovereignty called them out, wisdom modelled them, holiness cleansed them, and
power framed them.
2. To stir up deep humility. It is a plain
declaration of our miserable estate by nature, and the difficulty of emerging
out of it, impossible for any creature to effect. Had not God been infinitely
merciful, wise, holy, true, and omnipotent, and put forth his power to free men
from a slavery to sin, not a man had been able to escape out of it; and these
two, admiration of God, and humiliation of self, are the two great acts of a
Christian, which set all other graces on work. Mercy speaks us very miserable,
wisdom declares us fools, holiness unclean, and power extremely weak.
3. How mightily will it give a ground to the
exercise of faith! He that is deeply sensible of this work of holiness and
power in him, cannot but trust God upon his deed, as well as before he did upon
his word. As you go to the promises without you, consider also the counterpart
of the promise within you, and the efficacy of that power which wrought it. You
have a ground of faith within you; the power extends to every one wherein this
work is wrought: 'What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who
believe;' this the apostle speaks to all the believing Ephesians.
4. Therefore look much into yourselves by
way of examination, to observe the actions of God's wisdom, holiness, and power
within you. The want of this makes many gracious persons live disconsolately.
Paul was certainly diligent in his observation, since he speaks so feelingly
and experimentally of it. It is the way to answer Satan's objections, silence
unbelieving thoughts, when you can trace the steps and operations of them in
you; it would make you strive for an increase of this work of regeneration,
that you may feel in yourselves more evidences of the holiness and power of
God.
5. Those that want it may well despair of
attaining it by themselves and their own strength. Divine wisdom and power are
exerted in this work, and men may as well think themselves able to raise a dead
man, yea, Christ from the grave, and set him at the right hand of God, as do
this by their own strength. If we want an eye or a hand, all the creation
cannot furnish us with either. How can any power but that which is infinite
give us an eye to look to Christ within the veil, and a hand to clasp him in
heaven?
6. It directs men where to seek it, and to
seek it earnestly. At the hands of God, since infinite wisdom, holiness, and
power, are necessary for the production of it. With earnestness, because it is
so transcendent a work, has so many perfections of God shining in it, that
creature-strength and wisdom is utterly unable to frame and raise it; and with
hopes too, if they earnestly seek it, since God has hereby declared himself
infinitely loving, in the combination of so many attributes for the effecting
of it. Plead, therefore, the glory of God in these his attributes, and if God
give you a heart to seek it, it is a probable argument he will give you that
grace which he has given you a heart to desire.
IV. Quest. How God does this?
1. This work is secret, and therefore
difficult to be described. The effects are as obvious to a spiritual sense, as
the methods of it obscure to our understandings; secret as the original of
winds, sensible as the sound and bluster of them, John iii. 8. If a dead man
were raised, he would not know the manner how his soul returned into the body,
how it took its former place, and made up a new union, yet he would know that
he lives and moves. A gracious soul knows that he was carnal, and now
spiritual, blind, and that he now sees. He finds strength instead of weakness,
inclinations to good instead of opposition, sweetness in the ways of God
instead of bitterness. The methods of grace are obscure as those of nature: Eccles.
xi. 5, 'Who knows the way of the spirit, or how the bones grow in the womb of
her that is with child? even so thou knows not the works of God who makes all.'
The manner of the formation of Christ in the soul is as undiscernible as the
formation of a child, or the manner of Christ's conception in the womb of the
virgin, both which are fearful and wonderful, as it is said of the first, Ps.
cxxxix. 14, 'Who can declare his generation 9' Isa. liii. 8; that is, the
generation of Christ, either in his person or in his people. We cannot give a
satisfactory account of the natural motions of our souls, how one faculty
commands another, how the soul governs the several parts of the body, what the
nature of the action of our mind is in contemplation and reflection, how our
wills move the spirits in the body, whereby the members are acted in their
motion, and the functions of life performed. Much more undiscernible are the
supernatural methods of the Spirit of God. We know ourselves heirs to the
corruption of the first Adam by the inbeing of it, the light of the grace of
the second Adam discovers itself in the soul, but the manner of the descent of
either is not easily to he determined. The loadstone's attracting of iron is
the best representation of this work; the soul, like that, moves sensibly,
cleaves strongly to God; but wherein this virtue consists, how communicated,
both in that of nature and this of spirit, dazzles the eye of reason.
2. Yet this is evident, that it is rational;
that is, congruous to the essential nature of man. God does not deal with us as
beasts, or as creatures destitute of sense, but as creatures of an intelligent
order. Who is there that believes in Christ in such a manner as heavy things
fall to the earth, or light things fly up to the air, or as beasts run at the
beck of their sensual appetite, without rule or reason? If the Spirit of God
wrought so upon man, this were to lay our faculties asleep, not to act them,
but to act only upon them; this were to invert the natural order by creation,
to raze out the foundations of virtue, and deny the creature the pleasure of
his condition, who, according to such a manner of operation, could not
understand his own state, no more than a brute can the harmony of music, or the
pleasing variety of colours. But grace perfects our souls, possesses them with
new principles, moves one faculty by another, like the motions of the wheels in
a clock or watch; like the common course of providence, wherein he orders all
affairs according to the dependence of them one upon another by creation,
without making any inroad upon the natural rights of any creature, but
preserving them entire, unless in some miraculous action. He diffuses a
supernatural virtue into the soul, not to thwart it in that course of working
he appointed it in the creation, but to move it agreeably to its nature as a
rational being. As the sun conveys a celestial virtue upon the plants, drawing
them forth by its influence according to their several natures, so the Holy
Ghost introduces a supernatural principle into men, whereby they act as
reasonable creatures in a higher strain. What methods our Saviour used in the
first declaration of the gospel, he uses in the propagation of it in the hearts
of men. The same reason that is used in writing the indenture is used in
writing the counterpart. He might, by his omniscient wisdom, have found the way
to the most secret corner of every man's heart, and by his power have set up
what standard he pleased in every part of the castle, without proposing the gospel
in the way of miracles and arguments; but he transacts all that affair in such
a manner, that men might be moved in a rational way to their own happiness. He
required a rational belief, as he gave rational evidences: John x. 37, 'If I do
not the works of my Father, believe me not;' that is, the works that none but
one empowered by God could do. God, that requires of us a reasonable service,
would work upon us by a reasonable operation. God therefore works by way of a
spiritual illumination of the understanding, in propounding the creature's
happiness by arguments and reasons, and in a way of a spiritual impression upon
the will, moving it sweetly to the embracing that happiness, and the means to
it which he does propose; and indeed without this work preceding, the motion of
the will could never be regular.
God does this by a double work.
1. Upon the understanding.
2. Upon the will.
1. Upon the understanding. The opening the
eyes precedes the conversion from darkness to light, in God's operation as well
as in the apostles' commission, Acts xxvi. 18. The first appearance of life,
when God raises the soul, is in the clearness and distinctness of its knowledge
of God, Hos. vi 2, 3. And the apostle, in his exhortation to the Romans, tells
them the way for the transformation of their souls was by the renewing of their
minds: 'Be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds,' Rom. xii. '2. The
light of the sun is seen breaking out at the dawning at the day, before the
heat of the sun be felt. As the action of our sense is to sensible objects, so
is that of our soul to spiritual. Our eye first sees an object before our
hearts desire it, or our members move to it; so there is an apprehension of the
goodness of the thing proposed, before there be any motion of our wills to it;
so God begins his work in our minds, and terminates it in our wills. In regard
of this, as a state of nature is set forth under the term of darkness, so a
state of grace is often termed light, that being the first work in the new
creation, as it was the first word of command in the old, 'Let there be light,'
2 Cor. iv. 6, Col. iii. 10, and is therefore called a renewing 'in knowledge,'
or unto knowledge or acknowledgement, "anakainoumenon eis epignosin".
If you consider the Scripture, you will find most of the terms whereby this is
set forth to us have relation to the understanding. The gospel itself is called
knowledge, Luke i. 77, wisdom, 1 Cor. i. 30. What faculty in man is appointed
for the apprehending of a science to gain wisdom, but the understanding? That
whereby we receive the gospel is called 'the spirit of the mind,' 'the eyes of
the understanding' and 'sight,' which is put before believing: John vi. 40,
'Every one which sees the Son, and believes on him.' The work of grace is
called 'revelation,' Gal. i. 16, 'illumination,' Eph. i. 18, 'translation from
darkness to light,' 'opening the heart.' The action of our minds being
enlightened, is called 'comprehending', Eph. iii. 18, and 'knowledge,' 2 Peter
i. 2. All respect the understanding as the original wheel which God primarily
sets in order, from whence he does influence secondarily all the other
faculties which depend upon its guidance, God preserving hereby the order which
he instituted in nature. Therefore, when the understanding savingly apprehends
the deformity of sin, the will must needs hate it; when it apprehends the mercy
of God, and the beauty of holiness, the will must needs love him, and the
higher the degrees of this saving illumination are in the mind, the stronger
and firmer are the habits and acts of grace in the will. This illuminative act
of the Spirit is before, prior natura, the other of inclining the will,
for the understanding is first exercised about the word, as verum, true,
before the will is concerned in it as good. The understanding takes in the
light of the gospel, which, by the working of the Spirit, is reflected upon the
will, whereby it is changed into the image of Christ, whose gospel it is: 2
Cor. iii. 18, 'Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed
into the same image.' The first act is of the mind, which is the eye of the
soul; where the apostle intimates, that the whole progress, as well as the
first change, is wrought in this manner.
This is wrought,
1. By removing the indisposition and prejudices which naturally are in the mind. As a wise physician which orders his medicines for the removing of the principal humour. Chains of darkness must be broken, films upon the eye must be removed, which hinder the act of vision; for what the eye is to the body, that the understanding is to the soul. The darkness of ignorance is promised in the covenant to be scattered: 'They shall all know me, from the least to the greatest of them,'