the end of his coming and indwelling is to maintain it.

Not by the devil; for he that is in us is greater and stronger than he that is in the world, 1 John iv. 4; in all the allurements and affrightments of the world. Not by his temptations; they shall either be intercepted or resisted by an assisting grace stronger than their author's malice: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it," 1 Cor. x. 13.

[3.] Not by the world. If the God of the world cannot do it, the world itself shall not be able. Christ hath conquered the world for us by his death, John xvi. 33, and hath given us power to conquer it by our faith, 1 John v. 4.

Second Use. Matter of Comfort.

This doctrine of the preservation of grace is the crown, glory, and sweetness of all other privileges. Without it we should, in the midst of regeneration, justification, adoption, droop and be tormented with fears of losing them: it is the assurance of this that makes believers come to Sion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads. Premise this I must, this comfort belongs only to those that have true grace: see therefore whether you can find any saving work upon your hearts towards God, before you entitle yourselves to the comfort of this doctrine.

1. Our state by redemption and regeneration is better than Adam's by creation, in respect of permanency, though not of present integrity. God keeps us safer in a state of imperfection, than Adam was in all his innocence. Adam had a better

nature, and a stronger inherent power conferred upon him by creation; he was created after God's image, but he defaced and lost it, and afterwards begat in his own likeness, not in the likeness of God, whereof he was stript. He had a natural power, but no supernatural assistance. We have no natural power, but we have a supernatural help. Our supernatural assistance confers upon us a better state than his natural power did, or could do upon him. We are kept by the power of God to salvation, and he was to be kept by his own. He was to stand by the strength of nature, we by the strength of grace :-Grace wherein you stand, through faith, Rom. v. 2: "By faith ye stand,” 2 Cor. i. 24. Grace is as immutable, as nature is changeable. He was under the government of his own free-will; it is our happiness to be under the conduct of the Son of God by his Spirit: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God," Rom. viii. 14; and that by virtue of a charge, a privilege never allowed to Adam, nor angels, who being their own keepers, were soon their own destroyers. He had a natural power to stand, but without a will; we have a gracious power to will, and the act of perseverance conferred upon us. He had a power to stand, precepts to stand, promises to encourage him to stand, but not one promise to secure him from falling; we have both a supernatural help, and an immutable promise, that the fear of God should be put into our hearts, to this end, to preserve us from falling, Jer. xxxii. 40. By Christ we have not only words of grace to encourage us, but the power of grace to establish us; not only precepts to persevere, but promises that we shall. Otherwise the promise could be no

surer than that annexed to the covenant of works. If the condition of it might be as easily lost as the condition of Adam's covenant, then would the new covenant lose its end, which was to ensure the promise to all the seed: "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, that the promise might be sure to all the seed," Rom. iv. 16. Adam was under a mutable covenant, and we under an everlasting one. Adam had no reserve of nature to supply nature upon any defect; we have out of Christ's fulness, grace for grace, John i. 16.

Grace for the supply of grace upon any emergency. The manner whereby we stand is different from the manner of his standing; he stood in dependence on his original righteousness, which being once lost, all the original virtues depending on that, were lost with it. Our state is secured in higher hands. "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," 1 Cor. i. 30. All which are dispensed to us in the streams, but reserved in him as the fountain. He is made all those to us, not we to ourselves. Adam's life was hid in himself; ours with Christ in God, Col. iii. 3. Our life is as secure in Christ, as Christ's is secure in God. Christ's hand and his Father's bosom are not to be rifled by any power on earth. Heaven is no place to be pillaged by the serpent. Which state then is best? Our nature is restored by the second Adam fundamentally better; not at present so bright as his, but more permanent. The mutability of the first Adam procured our misery; the strength of the second preserves our security. So that a gracious man is better established in his little grace,

by the power of God, than Adam in his flourishing integrity by the strength of his own will.

2. The state of a regenerate man is as secure as the state of the invisible church, and more firm than that of any particular visible church in the world. You stand upon as good terms as the whole assembly of the first-born, and upon a surer foundation than any particular church: "They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abides for ever," Psa. cxxv. 1. They shall be impregnable. As stable as that mountain of the Lord's house, which was to be established on the top of the mountains, Isa. ii. 2; alluding to that temple built upon mount Moriah, of a steep ascent; firmer than all the worldly powers and strongest monarchies, compared to mountains in scripture. Particular churches may fall. How is the glory of many of them vanished! Particular believers shall not, because their standing is in Christ, by virtue of that covenant whereof Christ is Mediator, and of that promise made to the whole body, wherein the interest of every member is included: "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it," Matt. xvi. 18. Neither the power nor policy of hell: gates being the seats of judgment, and magazines of arms. The visible church is only so by profession and privileges; an invisible member is so by nature and union. Appearances will expire, when nature shall abide. The mystical body of Christ, and any member of it, can no more die, than the natural body of Christ can now, or any member of that. No member of Christ's fleshly body did or shall see corruption. The union between the soul and the body is natural by the band of vital spirits;

the knot between a true member and Christ is supernatural. The second Person in the Trinity, being united to the body of Christ, kept it from corruption. The third Person in the Trinity keeps the union between Christ and a mystical member from dissolving, which no particular church in the world, as a church, can lay claim to. Though Christ may discard a particular church, yet not a particular elect person, because of that agreement between his Father and himself concerning those given to him. But we read not of any whole nation or church in the world given to Christ as such, and in such a manner as a particular person is. There is a difference between God's electing a people to have the gospel preached, and his electing a person to have the gospel wrought in him. The standing of any particular church is not for itself, but for the elect in it. When God chooseth a nation to be under the preaching of the gospel, it is for the sake of his elect ones sprinkled among them. And that church stands as long as there are elect persons among them to be brought in; when the number is gathered into God's fold, the gospel is removed thence, because of the rejection of it by the rest. These two elections of persons and nations, the one to grace, and the other to the enjoyment of the ministry of the gospel, are mixed together by the apostle in his discourse, Rom. xi. Some places must be understood of the one, and some of the other. When the election is said to be void, it is meant of the election of a nation, as the Jews are called God's chosen people. When it is said to stand, it is meant of the election of a person as when we say, man is mortal, and man is immortal, in different senses both are true;