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ing so rank as otherwise they would do.-Finally, Though ye cannot recover yourselves, nor take hold of the saving help offered to you in the gospel; yet even by the power of nature, ye may use the outward and ordinary means, whereby Christ communicates the benefits of redemption to ruined sinners, who are utterly unable to recover themselves out of the state of sin and wrath. Ye may, and can, if ye please, do many things that would set you in a fair way for help from the Lord Jesus Christ. Ye may go so far on, as to be not far from the kingdom of God, as the discreet scribe had done, Mark xii. 34. though (it would seem) he was destitute of supernatural abilities. Though ye cannot cure yourselves, yet ye may come to the pool, where many such diseased persons as ye are have been cured: Ye haye none to put you into it, yet ye may lie at the side of it; and who knows but the Lord may return, and leave a blessing behind him, as in the case of the impotent man, recorded, John v. 5, 6, 7, 8. I hope Satan does not chain you to your houses, nor stake you down in your fields on the Lord's day; but ye are at liberty, and can wait at the posts of wisdom's door, if ye will. And when ye come thither, he doth not beat drums at your ears, that ye cannot hear what is said; there is no force upon you, obliging you to apply all you hear to others; ye may apply to yourselves what belongs to your state and condition; and when you go home, you are not fettered in your houses, where perhaps no religious discourse is to be heard; but ye may retire to some separate place, where ye can meditate, and pose your conscience with pertinent questions upon what ye have heard. Ye are not possessed with a dumb devil, that ye cannot get your mouths opened in prayer to God. Ye are not so driven out of your beds to your worldly business, and from your worldly business to your beds again, but ye might, if ye would, bestow some prayers to God upon the case of your perishing souls. Ye may examine yourselves, as to the state of your souls, in a solemn manner, as in the presence of God; ye may discern that ye have no grace, and that ye are lost and undone without it; and may cry unto God for it. These things are within the compass of natural abilities, and may be practised where there is no grace. It must aggravate your guilt, that you

will not be at so much pains about the state and case of your precious souls. And if ye do not what you can do, ye will be condemned not only for your want of grace, but for your despising of it.

Object. (3.) But all this is needless, seeing we are utterly unable to keep ourselves out of the state of sin and wrath. Ans. Give no place to that delusion, which puts asunder what God hath joined, namely the use of means, and a sense of our own impotency. If ever the Spirit of God graciously influence your souls, ye will become thoroughly sensible of your absolute inal ility, and yet enter upon a vigorous use of means. Ye will do for yourselves, as if ye were to do all; and yet overlook all ye do, as if ye had done nothing. Will ye do nothing for yourselves, because ye cannot do all? Lay down no such impious conclusion against your own souls. Do what you can, and it may be, while ye are doing what ye can for yourselves, God will do for you what ye cannot. "Understandest thou what thou readest?" Said Philip to the eunuch: "How can I," said he, "except some man should guide me?" Acts viii. 30, 31. He could not understand the scripture he read; yet he could read it; he did what he could, he read, and while he was reading, God sent him an interpreter. The Israelites were in a great strait at the Red Sea; and how could they help themselves when upon the one hand where mountains, and on the other, the enemy's garrison; when Pharaoh and his host were behind them, and the Red Sea before them? What could they do? "Speak unto the children of Israel," saith the Lord to Moses, "that they go forward," Exod. xiv. 15. For what end should they go forward? Can they make a passage to themselves through the sea? No; but let them go forward, saith the Lord; though they cannot turn sea to dry land, yet they can go forward to the shore, and so they did; and when they did what they could, God did for them what they could not do.

Quest. Has God promised to convert and save them, who, in the use of means, do what they can towards their own relief? Ans. We may not speak wickedly for God; natural men being strangers to the covenants of promise, Eph. ii. 12. have no such promise made to them: Nevertheless, they do not act rationally, unless they exert the

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powers they have, and do what they can. For, (1.) It is possible this course may succeed with them. If ye do what ye can, it may be, God will do for you what you cannot do for yourselves. This is sufficient to determine a man, in a matter of the utmost importance, such as this is, Acts viii. 22. “Pray God, if perhaps the thoughts of thy heart may be forgiven thee." Joel ii. 14. "Who knoweth if he will return?" If success may be, the trial should be. If, in a wreck at sea, all the sailors and passengers had betaken themselves each to a broken board for safety, and one of them should see all the rest perish, notwithstanding of their utmost endeavours to save themselves, yet the very possibility of escaping by that means would determine that one still to do his best with his board. Why then do ye not reason with yourselves, as the four lepers did who sat at the gates of Samaria? 2 Kings vii. 3, 4. Why do ye not say, If we sit still, not doing what we can, we die; let us put it to a trial, if we be saved, we shall live; if not, we shall but die? (2.) It is probable this course may succeed. God is good and merciful; he loves to surprise men with his grace, and is often found of them that sought him not, Isa. lxv. 1. If ye do thus, ye are so far in the road of your duty; and ye are using the means which the Lord is wont to bless for mens spiritual recovery; ye lay yourselves in the way of the great Physician, and so it is probable ye may be healed. Lydia went, with others, to the place where prayer was wont to be made, and the Lord opened her heart, Acts xvi. 13, 14. Ye plough and sow though nobody can tell you for certain, that ye will get so much as your seed again: Ye use means for the recovery of your health, though ye are not sure they will succeed. In these cases, probability determines you; and why not in this also? Importunity, we see, does very much with men ;, therefore pray, meditate, desire help of God; be much at the throne of grace, supplicating for grace, and do not faint. Though God regard not you, who, in your present state, are but one mass of sin, universally depraved, and vitiated in all the powers of your soul; yet he may regard his own ordinance. Though he regards not your prayers, your meditations, &c. yet he may regard prayer, meditation, and the like means of his own appointment, and so bless them to you. Wherefore, if ye will not do what ye

can ye are not only dead, but you declare yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

To conclude: Let the saints admire the freedom and power of grace, which came to them in their helpless condition, made their chains fall off, the iron gate to open to them, raised the fallen creatures, and brought them out of the state of sin and wrath, wherein they would have lain and perished, had they not been mercifully visited. Let the natural man be sensible of his utter inability to recover himself. Know thou art without strength, and cannot come to Christ, till thou art drawn. Thou art lost, and cannot help thyself. This may shake the foundation of thy hopes, who never saw thy absolute need of Christ and his grace; but thinkest to shift for thyself, by thy civility, morality, drowsy wishes and duties; and by a faith and repentance, which have sprung up out of thy natural powers, without the power and efficacy of the grace of Christ. O be convinced of thy absolute need of Christ, and his overcoming grace; believe thy utter inability to recover thyself; and so thou mayest be humbled, shaken out of thy self-confidence, and lie down in dust and ashes, groaning out thy miserable case before the Lord. A kindly sense of thy natural impotency, the impotency of depraved human nature, would be a step towards a delivery.

Thus far of man's natural state, the state of entire depravation.

STATE III.

NAMELY,

THE STATE OF GRACE; OR BEGUN RECOVERY.

HEAD I.

REGENERATION.

1 PETER i. 23.

Being born again, not of corruptible Seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Ε

WE

proceed now to the state of grace, the state of begun recovery of human nature, into which, all that shall partake of eternal happiness, are translated, sooner or later, while in this world. It is the result of a gracious change, made upon those who shall inherit eternal life; which change may be taken up in these two, (1.) In opposition to their natural real state, the state of corruption, there is a change made upon them in regeneration, whereby their nature is changed. (2.) In opposition to their natural relative state, the state of wrath, there is a change made upon them, in their union with the Lord Jesus Christ; by which they are set beyond the reach of condemnation. These, therefore, namely, regeneration and union with Christ, I design to handle, as the great and comprehensive changes on a sinner, constituting him in the state of grace.

The first of these we have in the text, together with the outward and ordinary means, by which it is brought about

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