God to help us; yet we could have no foundation for asking his help, unless he had made the discovery first, that he was ready to help us. Without that, he might justly have charged it upon us as arrogance and presumption to expect any such thing at his hands. All our hope is built on this, that while we have destroyed ourselves, he hath graciously let us know, that "in him is our help," Hos. xiii. 9.

So then, as the apostle says, Rom. ix. 16. " it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. That any come to be of the true spiritual Israel (of which the apostle seems to be there speaking,) are effectually called by the Holy Spirit, and so introduced into a covenant state; is not owing merely to the towardly disposition of men, or to the virtue of any means which they make use of. Those means would never effect a change without the Spirit, nor would their best use of them deserve the Spirit. Therefore it is entirely owing to the sovereign mercy of God, that any are recovered; even though they should be found in the ordinary way of his grace, more than others. To the same purpose the apostle speaks to the Ephesians, Eph. ii. 8, 9. "By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." All our salvation is owing to grace; not only the blessings, to which we are admitted upon believing; but even our faith itself; for that is not of ourselves: but by the operation of God's Spirit; as well as the benefits consequent upon it, follow upon faith by the constitution of his grace. And that operation of the Spirit is not owing to any worthiness in us, or in any of our works before faith; but it is the free gift of God, which he might justly have refused, if he had pleased. And therefore there can be no room for boasting.

But all this carries no inconsistency in it with God's having freely and graciously established a constitution wherein he encourages us to hope for the grace of his Spirit in a stated way.

It is not one jot the less grace, because he directs us to be found in the use of means. To pretend merit in any of our endeavours, or that the gift of the spirit is tied down to them from an intrinsic worth in them, would indeed be exceedingly disparaging to the grace of God and to the truth of the gos

pel. But it is not in the least so to assert, that he hath directed even sinners to a course, wherein they may hope that he will be found of them; when the hope of success in such a course is founded, neither upon an apprehension of their own sufficiency to change their hearts by those means without the Spirit, nor upon a conceit of value in their endeavours to procure the Spirit, but merely upon God's own free intimations of his mind. It was as much grace in God to the Israelites, to throw down the walls of Jericho upon their compassing the city with the sound of ram's horns, as if he had done it without any such means intervening: And as much grace in Christ to cure the blind man by spitting on the ground, and making clay of the spittle, and anointing his eyes, and bidding him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, as if he had done it immediately. And why should it be esteemed any diminution of the free grace of God to maintain, that in order to sinners' expectation of his saving grace, he will have them to apply themselves to such and such means? When those things are not pretended to have a natural efficacy for producing or procuring a new nature; but only to be appointed means, or God's prescribed way, wherein he ordinarily chooses to be gracious; and means worthy of the wisdom of God to prescribe.

To me, divine mercy shines more illustriously, in having left directions to sinners, to what course to betake themselves and in what way to hope for his grace: than if he had left them altogether at an uncertainty, till they feel that grace itself actually surprizing them.

God in the whole work of our salvation hath not only signalized "the riches of his grace, but therein hath abounded, toward us in all wisdom and prudence," Eph. i. 7, 8. He has chosen to display his mercy in harmony with his other blessed perfections. Therefore he grants us not a pardon absolutely, but upon an atonement; nor interests us in that, without faith. And why should it be thought strange, that he should have the same regards in his constitution of grace published to sinners in common? That he should therein treat them according to the reasonable natures he hath given them, striking upon the main principles of human action, hope, and fear, and putting them upon exercises suitable to their present condition, with encouraging intimations of success by his grace?

2. Nothing required from sinners in order to their participation of the Spirit, is expected to be done by their mere natural power; but the preventing grace of the same Spirit is supposed even to this. Men indeed are generally represented in scripture, as destitute of the Spirit, till their effectual turn from sin to God. So Jude 19. "Sensual, having not the Spirit." The same is given as the character of all who are not in a saving relation to Christ, Rom. viii. 6. "If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." These and other scriptures speak of men as without the Spirit, till they partake of his influences so far as to be actually renewed by them, and to become obedient to the faith. Till they become a willing people in the day of his power, they have not the Spirit dwelling in them, as in his temples; he is not a vital, prevailing principle of action to them; he is not in them as the earnest of the inheritance. But this blessed agent has a great deal to do with the minds of sinners before that. There are his common, as well as his special operations. There is an agency of his as promiscuously and extensively afforded as the gospel is; this indeed is the spring and source of any good thought or motion in the mind of a fallen creature. Every good and perfect gift, in the sphere of moral goodness in opposition to sin, of which the apostle is here speaking, "is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights,' Jam. i. 17. And all the good of this kind that comes to men from God, we are taught to consider as immediately conveyed by his Spirit. We are not sufficient, in our lapsed state, to think any thing is good, "as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God," 2 Cor. iii. 5. And therefore, as in order to the old creation, so in order to the new, the Spirit of God is beforehand moving upon the waters, and so far relieving the natural weakness of sinners, that they are made capable of a rational and serious use of appointed means. Upon this foot gospel-exhortations are fitly addressed to them; and peculiar threatenings are most justly added to those who shall neglect or reject the salvation offered in it. God promises to give a new heart; that shews the necessity of his grace to produce it. In another place he exhorts sinners, Ezek. xviii. 31. "Cast away from you all your transgressions, and make you a new heart, and a new Spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel ?" That shews, that some

duty lies upon them in order to it; and they are capable of performing that duty, not of themselves, but by virtue of the preparatory grace of the Spirit.

3. It is not asserted, that God never makes any partakers of the effectual grace of his Spirit, who are not found in the use of appointed means: but that this is his ordinary way of acting, and the only rule we have for our expectation.

There are miracles of sovereign grace in every age. That, which was said of the Gentile world, is sometimes accomplishccomplished also in the case of particular persons, Rom. x. 20. "I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me." God hath graciously arrested sinners in the height of their rebellion and opposition to him, when they had not one serious thought about their souls, and were quite out of the way of ordinary means. By such surprizes of mercy he is pleased now and then to give a striking proof, that conversion is his work, and that he hath not limited himself to the means which he hath prescribed to us; or he brings a prodigal home by some extraordinary method, for the sake of some great purposes which he has to serve by him, who would otherwise scarce ever be in any likely way of recovery. But this is not God's usual method. And it would be the highest folly and presumption in other sinners, who have the stated means and calls of the gospel, to neglect a serious attendance on them, upon a vain hope that God may go out of his way to meet with them: as much folly, as it would be for a man to neglect a prudential care for his daily bread, in hope that God will feed him with manna from heaven, as he did the Israelites; or by ravens, as he did Elijah as much presumption, as to expect an immediate voice from heaven to bring them home, because God took such a course in order to Saul's conversion, who was afterward the blessed apostle Paul.

The sum of all is this. Though a sinner can do nothing to deserve the grace of the Holy Spirit, though in his fallen' state, he would not of himself do any thing that hath the least tendency towards a saving change; though God sometimes makes monuments of his grace in an extraordinary way: yet in his wise grace he hath directed sinners to a course and way of acting, wherein they may hope to be made partakers of his saving influences; and they are capable of applying themselves

to this course and way of acting by the help of his common grace; and in that course alone, he hath given them ground to hope, that he will effectually work in them both to will and to do. I now proceed,

II. To represent to you what is incumbent upon sinners, in order to their entertaining hope of being born of the Spirit. 1. They should apply themselves diligently to attain Christian knowledge. My people perish for lack of knowledge,' was God's declaration of old concerning the people of the Jews, Hos. iv. 6. Till the minds of men are competently furnished with knowledge, the first step is not taken in the way toward life; for without this, there is nothing for the Spirit of God to work upon in the ordinary way. When he causes "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, to shine into the heart," he is not wont miraculously to convey new notions, different from those already revealed in his word, and which men were unacquainted with before; but he affects the heart in another and more powerful manner with the truths, which they are supposed to have learned already out of the word of God..

This makes a religious education, in places where the profession of Christianity is already settled, to be so eminent and frequent a means of saving impressions. Persons by that means have their minds stored with the principles of religion in the most teachable age, are led betimes to converse with their Bibles, have the help of good parents, pious acquaintances, and serious books for understanding the scriptures, and are trained up in a frequent attendance upon the ministry of the gospel. These things serve to possess them with the materials, which the Spirit ordinarily makes use of for real conversion. And therefore all those, who have young people under their care, are concerned to give them the best assistances they can this way: and it must be either an insincere pretence, or the effect of a very wild enthusiasm, for any to seem desirous of the salvation of their children, or to pray to God for it, while they are negligent in their own endeavours to furnish their minds with useful instruction.

if you have

As ever therefore you would obtain the Spirit ; the advantage of a religious education, see that you improve it, and the several means it puts in your hands, to lay up a good treasure of knowledge. Or if you should have been so un