35.

ward affiftances given to our powers, befides thofe out- ART. ward bleffings of Providence, is first to be proved. In X, the Old Teftament, it is true, there were not exprefs promifes made by Mofes of fuch affiftances; yet it feems both David and Solomon had a full perfuafion about it. David's prayers do every where relate to fomewhat that is internal: he prays God to open and turn his eyes; to Pl. cxix. unite and incline his heart; to quicken him; to make him to 18, 27, 32, go; to guide and lead him; to create in bim a clean beart, P. li. 10, and renew a right fpirit within him. Solomon fays, that 11. God gives wifdom; that be directs men's paths, and giveth grace to the lowly. In the promife that Jeremy gives of a new covenant, this is the character that is given of it; IJer. xxxi. will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their 33, 34. bearts: They fball all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest. Like to that is what Ezekiel promises; A Ezek. new beart alfo will I give you, and a new spirit will I put xxxvi. 26, within you; and I will take away the ftony heart out of your 27. flefb, and I will give you an beart of flesh; and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my ftatutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. That thefe prophecies relate to the new difpenfation, cannot be queftioned, fince Jeremy's words, to which the other are equivalent, are cited and applied to it in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Now the oppofition of the one difpenfation to the other, as it is here stated, confifts in this, that whereas the old difpenfation was made up of laws and ftatutes that were given on tables of ftone, and in writing, the new difpenfation was to have fomewhat in it befide that external revelation, which was to be internal, and which fhould difpofe and enable men to obferve it..

A great deal of our Saviour's difcourfe concerning the Spirit which he was to pour on his Difciples, did certainly belong to that extraordinary effufion at Pentecoft, and to those wonderful effects that were to follow upon it: yet as he had formerly given this as an encouragement to all men to pray, That bis heavenly Father would give the Luke xi. 13. Holy Spirit to every one that afked him, fo there are many parts of that his last difcourfe, that seem to belong to the conftant neceffities of all Chriftians. It is as unreafonable to limit all to that time, as the first words of it, I go Joh. xiv. 2 to prepare a place for you; and because I live, ye shall live aljo. The prayer which comes after that difcourse, being extended beyond them to all that should believe in his name through their word, we have no reason to limit thefe words, I will manifeft myself to him; My Father and I will make our abode with him; In me ye shall have peace; to

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X.

ART. the Apostles only; fo that the guidance, the conviction, the comforts of that Spirit, feem to be promifes which in a lower order belong to all Chriftians. St. Paul speaks of Rom. v. 5. the love of God fhed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghoft: when he was under temptation, and prayed 2 Cor. xii. thrice, he had this anfwer, My grace is fufficient for thee; my ftrength is made perfect in weakness. He prays often for the Churches in his Epiftles to them, that God would stablish, comfort, and perfect them, enlighten and strengthen them; and this in all that variety of words and phrafes that imEph. iii. 17. port inward affiftances. This is alfo meant by Chrift's 2 Cor.vi. 16. living and develling in us, and by our being rooted and Jam. i. 5. grounded in him; our being the temples of God, a boly 1 Joh.iii.9. babitation to him through bis Spirit; our being fealed by

9.

Heb. iv. 16.

the Spirit of God to the day of redemption; by all thofe directions to pray for grace to help in time of need, and to ask wifdom of God, that gives liberally to all men; as alfo by the phrafes of being born of God, and the having his feed abiding in us. Thefe and many more places, which return often through the New Teftament, feem to put it beyond all doubt, that there are inward communications from God, to the powers of our fouls; by which we are made both to apprehend the truths of religion, to remember and reflect on them, and to confider and follow them more effectually.

How these are applied to us is a great difficulty indeed, but it is to little purpofe to amufe ourselves about it. God may convey them immediately to our fouls, if he will; but it is more intelligible to us to imagine that the truths of religion are by a divine direction imprinted deep upon our brain; fo that naturally they must affect us much, and be oft in our thoughts: and this may be an hypothefis to explain regeneration or habitual grace by. When a deep impreffion is once made, there may be a direction from God, in the fame way that his Providence runs through the whole material world, given to the animal fpirits to move towards and ftrike upon that impreffion, and fo to excite fuch thoughts as by the law of the union of the foul and body do correfpond to it: this may ferve for an hypothefis to explain the conveyance of actual grace to us but thefe are only propofed as hypothefes, that is, as methods, or poffible ways how fuch things may be done, and which may help us to apprehend more diftinctly the manner of them. Now as this hypothefis has nothing in it but what is truly philofophical, fo it is highly congruous to the nature and attributes of God, that if our faculties are fallen under a decay and corruption,

corruption, fo that bare inftruction is not like to prevail over ART. us, he fhould by fome fecret methods rectify this in us. X. Our experience tells us but too often, what a feeble thing knowledge and fpeculation is, when it engages with nature ftrongly affaulted; how our best thoughts Hy from us and forfake us; whereas at other times the fenfe of these things lies with a due weight on our minds, and has another effect upon us. The way of conveying this is invisible; our Saviour compared it to the wind that bloweth where it John iii. 8. lifteth; no man knows whence it comes, and whither it goes. No man can give an account of the fudden changes of the wind, and of that force with which the air is driven by it, which is otherwise the most yielding of all bodies; to which he adds, fo is every one that is born of the Spirit. This he brings to illuftrate the meaning of what he had faid, that except a man was born again of water and of the Spirit, he could not enter into the kingdom of God: and to fhew how real and internal this was, he adds, that which is born of the flesh is flesh; that is, a man has the nature of thofe parents from whom he is defcended, by flesh being understood the fabric of the human body, animated by the foul: in oppofition to which he fubjoins, that which is born of the Spirit is fpirit; that is to fay, a man thus regenerated by the operation of the Spirit of God, comes to be of a fpiritual nature.

With this I conclude all that feemed neceffary to be proved, that there are inward affiftances given to us in the new difpenfation. I do not difpute whether these are fitly called grace, for perhaps that word will scarce be found in that fenfe in the Scriptures; it fignifying more largely the love and favour of God, without reftraining it to this act or effect of it. The next thing to be proved is, that there is a preventing grace, by which the will is first moved and difpofed to turn to God. It is certain that the firft promulgation of the Gofpel to the Churches that were gathered by the Apoftles, is afcribed wholly to the riches and freedom of the grace of God. This is fully done in the Epistle to the Ephefians, in which their former ignorance and corruption is fet forth under the figures of blindness, of being without hope, and without Eph. ii. 2, God in the world, and dead in trefpaffes and fins, they follow- 3, 12. ing the course of this world, and the prince of the power of the air, and being by nature children of wrath; that is, under wrath. I difpute not here concerning the meaning of the word by nature, whether it relates to the corruption of our nature in Adam, or to that general corruption that had overspread Heathenifm, and was become as it were

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27, 29.

ART. another nature to them. In this fingle inftance we plainX. ly fee, that there was no previous difpofition to the first preaching of the Gospel at Ephefus: many expreffions of this kind, though perhaps not of this force, are in the other Epiftles. St. Paul, in his Epiftle to the Romans, Rom. iv. 2. puts God's choofing of Abraham upon this, that it was of grace, not of debt, otherwife Abraham might have bad whereof to glory. And when he fpeaks of God's cafting off the Jews, and grafting the Gentiles upon that stock from which they were cut off, he afcribes it wholly to Rom.xi.20. the goodness of God towards them, and charges them not to be high minded, but to fear. In his Epistle to the CorinCor. i. 26, thians he fays, that not many wife, mighty, nor noble, were chofen, but God had chofen the foolish, the weak, and the base things of this world, fo that no flesh fhould glory in his prefence: and he urges this farther, in words that seem to be as applicable to particular perfons, as to communities or Cor. iv. 7. churches: Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what baft thou, that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why doft thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? From these and many more paffages of the like nature it ffa. Ixv. 1. is plain, that in the promulgation of the Gospel, God was found of them that fought not to him, and beard of them that called not upon him; that is, he prevented them by his favour, while there were no previous difpofitions in them to invite it, much lefs to merit it. From this it may be inferred, that the like method fhould be used with relation to particular perfons.

A&ts xvi. 14.

Joh. i. 13.

xv. 5, 16.

Phil. ii. 13.

We do find very exprefs inftances in the New Teftament of the converfion of fome by a preventing grace: it is faid, that God opened the heart of Lydia, fo that he attended to the things that were spoken of Paul. The converfion of St. Paul himself was fo clearly from a preventing grace, that if it had not been miraculous in fo many of its circumftances, it would have been a ftrong argument in behalf of it. Thefe words of Chrift feem alfo to affert it; Without me ye can do nothing; ye have not chofen me, but I you; and no man can come to me, except the Father which has fent me draw him. Thofe who received Chrift were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God. God is faid to work in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure: the one feems to import the firft beginnings, and the other the progrefs of a Chriftian courfe of life. So far all among us, that I know of, are agreed, though perhaps not as to the force that is in all thofe places to prove this point. There do yet remain two points in which they do not

agree;

agree; the one is the efficacy of this preventing grace; ART. fome think that it is of its own nature fo efficacious, that X. it never fails of converting thofe to whom it is given; others think that it only awakens and difpofes, as well as it enables them to turn to God, but that they may resist it, and that the greater part of mankind do actually refift it. The examining of this point, and the stating the arguments on both fides, will belong more properly to the leventeenth Article. The other head, in which many do differ, is concerning the extent of this preventing grace; for whereas fuch as do hold it to be efficacious of itself, reftrain it to the number of those who are elected and converted by it; others do believe, that as Chrift died. for all men, fo there is an univerfal grace which is given in Chrift to all men, in fome degree or other, and that it is given to all baptized Chriftians in a more eminent degree; and that as all are corrupted by Adam, there is also a general grace given to all men in Chrift. This depends fo much on the former point, that the difcuffing the one is indeed the difcuffing of both; and therefore it shall not be farther entered upon in this place.