charge committed to him, against the end of the Spirit's mission and abiding with us.

The question then may be thus stated-Whether that vital principle or habit of grace put into the heart by the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost at the conversion of the soul, be not perpetually preserved and cherished by the same Spirit, so that it never dies. And that therefore a regenerate man endued with this vital principle, neither can, nor will, by reason of this implanted and inworking grace of the Spirit, fall from faith, and serve sin, so as to give himself up wholly to the commands of it. The question is not-Whether we shall persevere if grace doth continue, as the contrary minded assert, and accordingly gloss upon the scriptures alleged for it. Such a question would be ridiculous. It is as much as to ask whether a man shall live to-morrow if his life remain in him? or whether the sun shall shine to-morrow if its light continues? and is as much as to say, a man shall persevere if he doth persevere. But-Whether the habit of grace, the fear of God, faith, the new creature, new man, or howsoever you will term it, be not so settled in the soul as that it shall never be totally removed? Some affirm that it may be. Satan was of this persuasion when he told God to his face: "Put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face," Job i. 8-11; he thought that smart afflictions would divest Job of that uprightness God so signally applauded in him, as a non-such in all the earth. The chief ground is, that they lay all, both conversion and preservation, upon the will of man, not grace.

I shall therefore lay down,

1. Some propositions for explaining it. It is acknowledged that,

(1.) The operations of grace may be interrupted. As long as there are two laws, one of sin in the members, another of grace in the mind; as long as there are two principles in a grand contest, flesh and spirit; as long as our knowledge is imperfect, and our love but of a weak growth, the operation of both cannot be more perfect than the nature of their principle. The vigour of our gracious actions is often enfeebled by the power of the flesh, that we do many times the evil we hate, and omit that good we love. And we cannot deny but that our acts flow oftener from a corrupt than a renewed principle. Yea, and those actions which flow from grace, are so tinctured with the vapours of the other principle, that they seem to partake more of the impressions of the law of sin, than of the law of the mind. So that our perseverance is not to be measured from the constant temper of our actions, but from the permanency of the habit. acts of grace may be suspended by the prevalence of some sinful distemper, as the operations of natural life are in an epileptic or apoplectic paroxysm. Hence it is that we find David so often praying for quickening grace, according to the promise, upon a sense of the flagging of his grace.

The

(2.) The comfort of our grace may be eclipsed. We may lose the sense of it without losing the substance. An actual communion may be lost upon a sinful fall, till actual repentance, when the union is not unloosed. A benumbed member is knit to the body, though it hath not its wonted vigour and active heat. Mutual comfort may be

suspended between man and wife, though the conjugal knot be not dissolved. Believers may be separated from Christ's smiles, but not from their relation to Christ, and being in him. Comfortable interest may be interrupted, when radical interest receives no damage. A leper under the law was hindered of actual enjoyment of his house, but not deprived of his legal title to it.

The

(3.) Relative grace cannot be lost. Every regenerate man being the son of God by a double title, that of regeneration and adoption, can never cease to be his son. The relation of a son to a father is indissoluble. It can never be, that he who is once a son can become no son: the relation is firm, though the affection may be on both sides extinguished. The relation we have to God, as his children, is knit with that other of heirs. apostle made no doubt of the truth of that consequence : "If children, then heirs, and heirs of God," Rom. viii. 17. And he was afterwards of the same mind: "And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ," Gal. iv. 7. If it be objected: True, unless a believer disinherit himself by an undutiful and contemptuous carriage. But he cannot, unless he should cease to be a creature. For the same apostle doth as positively affirm in a triumphant manner, that no other creature, under which believers themselves are comprehended, can separate from the love of God: "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels," &c. " nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," Rom. viii. 38, 39. And the other apostle comes in as a witness, that a son of God, so born, can never be guilty of such a contemptuous carriage

habitually, as may end in a disinheriting of him, because the seed of God, whereby he was born, remains in him, as the band of his relation: "His seed remains in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God," 1 John iii. 9. His being born of God is the rock against the flood of sin, because he is born of God, and makes it eternally true, that such an one is the son of God. Who ever did, or ever will hear of a son of God by those two titles in hell? It seems not congruous to Divine Wisdom, to make any his heirs, whom he saw he should disinherit. No wise man would do so, if he were conscious of all future events, and did sincerely adopt a person. And shall the allwise God be represented weaker than man?

(4.) The habit of inherent grace cannot be lost. A believer hath eternal life in actual possession, in the seed, and in reversion in the harvest, John vi. 54. It is plain: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever," 1 Pet. i. 23. It is called an incorruptible seed in opposition to corruptible, both in its own nature, and the effects produced by it. But this seed of the word being incorruptible, raises effects according to its nature. The antithesis is express; we are not born of corruptible seed, which is of a perishing nature, but of an incorruptible seed. The seed of our regeneration is incorruptible; the word, the instrument, is unchangeable; the Spirit, the efficient cause who manages the word, and thereby infuseth the seed, abides for ever. All these causes agreeing in one attribute of " incorruptible," must needs produce an effect suitable to the nature of them. It is indemonstrable, that so many incorruptible causes

should centre in a corruptible effect, and be compined together to produce an ephemeron, a thing that may have no longer life, according to this opinion, than the day it is born in. Further, the connexion of those words with verse 17, &c. import as much. He exhorts them to pass the time of their sojourning here in fear, not servile, but filial: "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things," ver. 18. Be encouraged to all holy and humble obedience, since you are fully assured of your perfect redemption, &c. As the blood of Christ doth not purchase a corruptible redemption, so neither doth the grace of Christ work a corruptible regeneration. As the blood of Christ was incorruptible blood, by virtue of the hypostatical union, and in regard of the efficacy of it to our redemption; so is grace an incorruptible seed, by reason of the believer's union with the Son of God, its production by the Spirit of God, and in regard of that incorruptible word, whereby it is both begotten and maintained in us. The habit of grace attends the soul to heaven, and for ever. The vital principle was not extinct in David by his gross fall, since we find him not praying for salvation, but the joy of it; not praying for the giving the Spirit, but not taking it away from him, which he had by his sin deserved to be deprived of: "Take not thy holy Spirit from me · restore unto me the joy of thy salvation," Psa. li. 11, 12: and also for greater degrees of sanctification, and cleansing his heart from its filthiness and falseness. Grace may indeed, like the sun, be under an eclipse, but its internal light and heat cannot expire.

(5.) Though grace be oppressed, yet it will