cords of love, thrown out to him in the gospel. The most skilful artificer cannot work without instruments; nor can the most cunning musician play well on an instrument that is out of tune. How can one believe, how can he repent, whose understanding is darkness, Eph. v. 8. whose heart is a stony heart, inflexible, insensible, Ezek. xxxvi. 26. whose affections are wholly disordered and distempered; who is averse to good, and bent to evil? The arms of natural abilities are too short to reach supernatural help: hence those who must excel in them, are oft-times most estranged from spiritual things, Matt. xi. 25. "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent."

Thirdly, Man cannot work a saving change on himself; but so.changed he must be, else he can neither believe nor repent, nor ever see heaven. No action. can be without a suitable principle. Believing, repenting, and the like, are the product of the new nature, and can never be produced by the old corrupt nature. Now, what can the natural man do in this matter? He must be regenerate, "begotten again into a lively hope:" but as the child cannot be active in his own generation, so a man cannot be active, but passive only in his own regeneration. The heart is shut against Christ man cannot open it, only God can do it by his grace, Acts xvi. 14. He is dead in sins :" he must be quickened, raised out of his grave: who can do this but God himself? Eph. ii. 5. Nay, he must be "created in Christ Jesus unto good works," Eph. ii. 10. These are works of omnipotency, and can be done by no less

power.

Fourthly, Man, in his depraved state, is under an utter inability to do any thing truly good, as was cleared before at large: how then can he obey the gospel? His nature is the very reverse of the gospel: how can he of himself fall in with that device of salvation, and accept the offered remedy? The corruption of man's nature infallibly concludes his utter inability to re cover himself any manner of way: and whoso is convinced of the one, must needs admit the other; for they stand and fall together. Were all the purchase of

Christ offered to the unregenerate man, for one good thought, he cannot command it, 2 Cor. iii. 5. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to think any thing as of ourselves." Were it offered on condition of a good word, yet" how can ye, being evil, speak good things?" Matt. xii. 35. Nay, were it left to yourselves, to choose what is easiest, Christ himself tells you, John xv. 5. ❝ithout me ye can do nothing." Lastly, The natural man cannot but resist the Lord's offering to help him; howbeit that resistance is infalli bly overcome in the elect, by converting grace. Can the stony heart choose but resist the stroke? There is not only an inability, but an enmity and obstinacy in man's will by nature. God knows, O natural man, (whether thou knowest it or not) that "thou art obstinate, and thy neck an iron sinew, and thy brow brass," Isa. xlviii. 4. and cannot be overcome, but by him, who hath "broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder." Hence is there such hard work in converting of a sinner. Sometimes he seems to be caught in the net of the gospel; yet quickly he slips away again. The hook catcheth hold of him; but he struggles, till getting free of it, he makes away with a bleeding wound. When good hopes conceived of him, by these that travail in birth, for the forming of Christ in him; there is oft-times nothing brought forth but wind. The deceitful heart makes many a shift to avoid a Saviour, and to cheat the man of his eternal happiness. Thus the natural man lies sunk in a state of sin and wrath, utterly unable to recover himself.

Objection (1.) If we be under an utter inability to do any good, how can God require us to do it? Answer, God" making man upright," Eccl. vii. 29. gave him a power to do every thing he should require of him. This power man lost by his own fault. We were bound to serve God, and do whatsoever he commanded us, as being his creatures; and also, we were under the superadded tye of a covenant, for that effect. Now we having, by our own fault, disabled ourselves; shall God lose his right of requiring our task, because we

M

have thrown away the strength he gave us, wherewithal to perform it? Has the creditor no right to require payment of his money, because the debtor has squandered it away, and is not able to pay him? Truly if God can require no more of us than we are able to do, we need no more to save us from wrath, but to make ourselves unable for every duty, and to incapacitate ourselves for serving of God any manner of way, as profane men frequently do; and so the deeper one is immersed in sin, he will be the more secure from wrath, for where God can require no duty of us, we do not sin in omitting it; and where there is no sin, there can be no wrath. (As to what may be urged by the unhumbled soul, against the putting off our stock in Adam's hand; the righteousness of that dispensation was cleared before.) But moreover, the unrenewed man is daily throwing away the very remains of natural abilities, that light and strength which are to be found amongst the ruins of mankind. Nay, farther, he will not believe his own utter inability to help himself; so that out of his own mouth he will be condemned. Even those who make their natural impotency to good, a covert to their sloth, do, with others, delay the work of turning to God, from time to time; under convictions, make large promises of reformation, which afterwards they never regard; and delay their repentance to a death-bed, as if they could help themselves in a moment, which speaks them to be far from a due sense of their natural inability, whatever they pretend.

Now if God can require of men the duty they are not able to do; he can in justice punish them for their not doing it, notwithstanding of their inability. If he have power to exact the debt of obedience, he has also power to cast the insolvent debtor into prison, for his not paying of it. Further, though unregenerate men have no gracious abilities; yet they want not natural abilities, which nevertheless they will not improve. There are many things they can do, which they do not, they will not do them; and therefore their damnation will be just. Nay, all their ability to good is

voluntary, they " will not come to Christ," John v. 40, They will not repent, they " will die," Ezek. xviii. 51. So they will be justly condemned because they will not turn to God, nor come to Christ; but love their chains better than their liberty, and "darkness rather than light," John iii. 19.

Objection. (2.) Why do you then preach Christ to us; call us to come to him, to believe, repent, and use the means of salvation? Answer, because it is your duty so to do. It is your duty to accept of Christ, as he is offered in the gospel; to repent of your sins, and to be holy in all manner of conversation: these things are commanded you of God; and his command, not your ability, is the measure of your duty. Moreover, these calls and exhortations are the means that God is pleased to make use of, for converting his elect, and working grace in their hearts: to them, "faith cometh by hearing," Rom. x. 17. while they are as unable to help themselves as the rest of mankind are. Upon very good grounds may we, at the command of God, "who raiseth the dead," go to their graves and cry in his name, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light," Eph. v. 14. And seeing the elect are not to be known, and dis tinguished from others before conversion: as the sun shines on the blind man's face, and the rain falls on the rocks as well as on the fruitful plains; so we preach Christ to all, and shoot the arrow at a verture, which God himself directs, as he sees meet. Moreover, these calls and exhortations are not altogether in vain, even to those that are not converted by them. Such persons may be convinced, though they be not converted: although they be not sanctified by these means; yet they may be restrained by them, from running into that excess of wickedness, which otherwise they would arrive at. The means of grace serve, as it were, to embalm many dead souls which are never quickened by them though they do not restore them to life; yet they keep them from smelling 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; though ye have 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. L 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 post of wisdom's doors, if ye will. And when ye come thither, he doth not heat 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 your selves, what belongs to your state and condition and when ye go home, ye 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 ques tions, upon what ye have heard. Ye are not possest 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 ye may cry unto God for it. These things are within the compass of natural abilities, and may be practised