peace, something to their own deception, that by quitting one or two lusts, they may have some kind of peace in all the rest, and think all is well. These men sometimes would fain obey the law, but they will not crucify the flesh; any thing that does not smart. Their temper and constitution will allow them easily to quit such superinduced follies, which out of a gay or an impertinent spirit they have contracted, or which came to them by company, or by chance, or confidence, or violence; but if they must mortify the flesh to quit a lust, that is too hard and beyond their powers, which are in captivity to the law of sin. Some men will commute a duty; and if you will allow them covetousness, they will quit their lust, or their intemperance, according as it happens. Herod did many things at the preaching of John the Baptist, and heard him gladly. Balaam did some things handsomely; though he was covetous and ambitious, yet he had a limit; he would obey the voice of the angel, and could not be tempted to speak a curse, when God spake a blessing. Ahab was an imperfect penitent; he did some things, but not enough. And if there be any root of bitterness, there is no regeneration; coloquintida, and death is in the pot.'

39. V. An unregenerate man may leave some sins, not only for temporal interest, but out of reverence of the divine law, out of fear and reverence. Under the law there were many such: and there is no peradventure but that many men, who like Felix, have trembled at a sermon, have with such a shaking-fit left off something, that was fit to be laid aside. To leave a sin out of fear of the divine judgment, is not sinful, or totally unacceptable. All that left sin in obedience and reverence to the law, did it in fear of punishment, because fear was the sanction of the law: and even under the Gospel, to obey out of fear of punishinent, though it be less perfect, yet it is not criminal, nay, rather on the other side; the worse that men are, so much the less they are afraid of the divine anger and judgments. To abstain out of fear, is to abstain out of a very proper motive: and God when he sends a judgment with a design of emendation, or threatens a criminal, or denounces woes and cursings, intends that fear should be the beginning of wisdom. "Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men," saith St. Paul. And

£ 2 Cor. v. 11.

the whole design of delivering criminals over to Satan, was but a pursuance of this argument of fear; that by feeling something, they might fear a worse, and for the present be affrighted from their sin. And this was no other than the argument which our blessed Saviour used to the poor paralytic: Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to thee.' But besides that this good fear may work much in an unregenerate person, or a man under the law, such a person may do some things in obedience to God, or thankfulness, and perfect, mere choice. So Jehu obeyed God a great way: but there was a turning, and a high stile, beyond which he would not go, and his principles could not carry him through. Few women can accuse themselves of adultery; in the great lines of chastity they choose to obey God, and the voice of honour; but can they say that their eye is not wanton, that they do not spend great portions of their time in vanity, that they are not idle, and useless, or busy-bodies, that they do not make it much of their employment to talk of fashions and trifles, or that they do make it their business to practise religion, to hear and attend to severe and sober counsels? If they be under the conduct of the Spirit, he hath certainly carried them into all the regions of duty. But to go a great way, and not to finish the journey, is the imperfection of the unregenerate. For in some persons, fear or love of God is not of itself strong enough to weigh down the scales; but there must be thrown in something from without, some generosity of spirit, or revenge, or gloriousness and bravery, or natural pity, or interest; and so far as these, or any of them, go along with the better principle, this will prevail; but when it must go alone, it is not strong enough. But this is a great way off from the state of sanctification or a new birth.

40. VI. An unregenerate man, besides the abstinence from much evil, may also do many good things for heaven, and yet never come thither. He may be sensible of his danger and sad condition, and pray to be delivered from it; and his prayers shall not be heard, because he does not reduce his prayers to action, and endeavour to be what he desires to be. Almost every man desires to be saved: but this desire is not with every one of that persuasion and effect as to make them willing to want the pleasures of the world for it, or to per form the labours of charity and repentance. A man may

strive and contend in or towards the ways of godliness, and yet fall short. Many men pray often, and fast much, and pay tithes, and do justice, and keep the commandments of the second table with great integrity; and so are good moral men, as the word is used in opposition to, or rather in destitution of, religion. Some are religious, and not just : some want sincerity in both: and of this, the Pharisees were a great example. But the words of our blessed Saviour are the greatest testimony in this article; Many shall strive to enter in, and shall not be able.' Either they shall contend too late like the five foolish virgins, and as they whom St. Paul, by way of caution, likens to Esau; or else they contend with incompetent and insufficient strengths: they strive, but put not force enough to the work. An unregenerate man hath not strength enough; that is, he wants the spirit, and activity, and perfectness, of resolution. Not that he wants such aids as are necessary and sufficient, but himself hath not purposes pertinacious, and resolutions strong enough. All that is necessary to his assistance from without, all that he hath or may have; but that which is necessary on his own part he hath not; but that is his own fault; that he might also have; and it is his duty, and therefore certainly in his power to have it. For a man is not capable of a law which he hath not powers sufficient to obey: he must be free and quit from all its contraries, from the power and dominion of them; or at least must be so free, that he may be quit of them if he please. For there can be no liberty, but where all the impediments are removed, or may be, if the man will.

41. VII. An unregenerate man may have received the Spirit of God, and yet be in a state of distance from God. For to have received the Holy Ghost, is not an inseparable propriety of the regenerate. The Spirit of God is an internal agent; that is, the effects and graces of the Spirit, by which we are assisted, are within us before they operate. For although all assistances from without are graces of God, the effects of Christ's passion, purchased for us by his blood and by his intercession; and all good company, wise counsels, apt notices, prevailing arguments, moving objects, and opportunities and endearments of virtue, are from above, from the Father of lights:' yet the Spirit of God does also work d Luke, xiii. 24.

more in wardly, and creates in us aptnesses and inclinations, consentings, and the acts of conviction and adherence, 'working in us to will and to do according' to our desire, or according 'to God's good pleasure:' yet this Holy Spirit is oftentimes grieved, sometimes provoked, and at last extinguished; which, because it is done only by them who are enemies of the Spirit, and not the servants of God, it follows, that the Spirit of God, by his aids and assistances, is in them that are not so, with a design to make them so : and if the Holy Spirit were not in any degree or sense in the unregenerate, how could a man be born again by the Spirit? for since no man can be regenerate by his own strengths, his new birth must be wrought by the Spirit of God; and especially in the beginnings of our conversion, is his assistance necessary: which assistance, because it works within as well, and rather than without, must needs be in a man before he operates within. And therefore to have received the Holy Spirit, is not the propriety of the regenerate; but to be led by him, to be conducted by the Spirit in all our ways and counsels, to obey his motions, to entertain his doctrine, to do his pleasure: this is that which gives the distinction and denomination. And this is called by St. Paul, the inhabitation of the Spirit of God in us,' in opposition to the inhabitans peccatum,' ⚫ the sin that dwelleth' in the unregenerate. The Spirit may be in us, calling and urging us to holiness; but unless the Spirit of God dwell in us, and abide in us, and love to do so, and rule, and give us laws, and be not grieved and cast out, but entertained, and cherished, and obeyed; unless, I say, the Spirit of God be thus in us, Christ is not in us; and if Christ be not in us, we are none of his.

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SECTION VI.

The Character of the Regenerate Estate, or Person.

42. FROM hence it is not hard to describe what are the proindications of the regenerate. 1. A regenerate person is per convinced of the goodness of the law, and meditates in it

Rom. viii. 9,

day and night'.' His delight is in God's law, not only with his mind approving, but with his will choosing, the duties and significations of the law.

II. The regenerate not only wishes that the good were done which God commands, but heartily sets about the doing of it.

III. He sometimes feels the rebellions of the flesh, but he fights against them always; and if he receive a fall, he rises instantly, and fights the more fiercely, and watches the more cautiously, and prays the more passionately, and arms himself more strongly, and prevails more prosperously. In a regenerate person there is flesh and spirit, but the spirit only rules. There is an outward and an inward man, but both of them are subject to the Spirit. There was a law of the members,' but it is abrogated and cancelled; the law is repealed, and does not any more enslave him to the law of sin.' "Nunc quamdiu concupiscit caro adversus spiritum, et spiritus adversus carnem, sat est nobis non consentire malis quæ sentimus in nobis:" "Every good man shall always feel the flesh lusting against the Spirit; that contention he shall never be quit, of, but it is enough for us if we never consent to the suggested evils"."

IV. A regenerate person does not only approve that which is best, and desire to do it, but he does it actually, and delights to do it; he continues and abides in it, which the Scripture calls a walking in the Spirit, and a living after it:' for he does his duty by the strengths of the Spirit; that is, upon considerations evangelical, in the love of God, in obedience to Christ, and by the aids he hath received from above beyond the powers of nature and education, and therefore he does his duty upon such considerations as are apt to make it integral and persevering. For,

V. A regenerate man does not only leave some sins but all, and willingly entertains none. He does not only quit a lust that is against his disposition, but that which he is most inclined to, he is most severe against, and most watchful to destroy it; he plucks out his right eye, and cuts off his right hand, and parts with his biggest interest, rather than keep a lust and therefore consequently chooses virtue by the same method, by which he abstains from vice. "Nam

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f Psal. i. 2. cxix. 77. 103.

* Aug. lib. de Contin. c. 2.