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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 ye can do; ye will be condemned, not only for your want of grace, but for your despising of it.

Objection (3.) But all this is needless, seeing we are utterly unable to help ourselves out of the state of sin and wrath. Answer, Give not 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 inability, 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 so much 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," saith 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 were 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.

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Question. Has God promised to convert and save them, who, in the use of means, do what they can to

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wards their own relief? Answer, 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 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 ye cannot do for your selves. 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 endeavour 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 not ye reason with yourselves, as the four lepers did, who sat at the gate of Samaria, 2 Kings vii. 3, 4. Why do ye not say, "If we sit still," not doing what we can, 66 we die;' let us put it to a trial; if we be saved, "we shall live;" if not, 66 we shall but die ?" (2.) It is probable this die?" 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. I. If ye do this, ye are so far in the road of your duty; and ye are using the means, which the Lord is wont to bless, for men's 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 no body 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

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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 ye 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 not they been mer cifully visited. Let the natural man be sensible of his utter inability to recover himself. Know thou art without strength; and canst not come to Christ, till thou be drawn. Thou art lost, and canst not help thyself. This may shake the foundation of thy hopes who never sawest 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 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: that 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.

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.

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 then, 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. The apostle here, to excite the saints to the study of holiness, and particularly of brotherly love, puts them in mind of their spiritual original. He tells them, they were born again; and that of one "incorruptible seed, the word of God." This speaks them to be brethren, partakers of the same new nature; which is the root from which holiness, and particularly brotherly love, doth spring. We are once born sinners; we must be born again, that we may be saints. The simple word signifies to be begotten; and so it may be read, Matt. xi. 11. to be conceived,, Matt. i. 20. and to be born, Matt. ii. 1. Accordingly the compound word used in the text may be taken in its full latitude, the last notion presupposing the two former: and so regeneration is a supernatural real change on the whole man, fitly compared to natural or corporal generation, as will afterward appear. The ordinary means of regeneration, called the seed, whereof the new creature is formed, is not corruptible seed. Of such indeed our bodies are generated but the spiritual seed of which the new creature is generated, is incorruptible; namely, "the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." The sound of the word of God passeth, even as other sounds do but the word lasteth, liveth and abideth, in respect of its everlasting effects, on all upon whom it operates. This "word, which by the gospel is preached unto you," (ver. 25.) impregnated by the Spirit of God, is the means of regeneration: and by it are dead sinners raised to life.

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DOCTRINE, All men in the state of grace are born again. All gracious persons, namely such as are in a state of favour with God, and endowed with gracious qualities and dispositions, are regenerate persons. In discoursing this subject, I shall shew what regeneration is; next, why it is so called; and then apply the doc

trine.

OF THE NATURE OF REGENERATION.

II. For the better understanding of the nature of regeneration, take this along with you in the first place;

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