and so by little and little to crucify it in us; and lastly, we have his merits as a sanctuary to fly unto, to forgive them here, and hereafter to expel them.

Fourthly, For all this I am full of doubts and restless fears, which do continually fight within me, and make my spirit languish and sink: and that which may decay, may likewise expire and vanish away .-To this I answer, That which inwardly decayeth and sinketh at the foundation, is perishable; but that which in its operations, and 'quoad nos,' in regard of sense and present complacency, may seem to decay, doth not yet perish in its substance. A cloud may hide the sun from the eye, but can never blot it out of his orb. Nay, spiritual grief is to that light which is sown in the heart, but like harrowing to the earth; it macerates for the time, but withal it tends to joy and beauty. There is difference between the pains of a woman in travel, and the pains of a gout, or some mortal disease; for though that be as extreme in smart and present irksomeness as the other, yet it contains in it, and it proceeds from, a matter of joy: and all the wrestlings of the soul with the enemies of salvation are but as the pains of a woman in travel; when Christ is fashioned, when the issue is victorious and with gain, the soul no more remembereth those afflictions, which were but for a moment.

Fifthly and lastly, I have fallen into many and great sins; and if all sin be of a mortal and venomous operation, how can my life in Christ consist with such heavy provocations and apostasies? To this in general I answer, If the sight of thy sins make thee look to Christ, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible." It is possible for thy greatest apostasies to vanish like a cloud, and to be forgotten *. Though sin have weakened the law, that we cannot be saved by that; yet it hath not weakened faith, or made that unable to save. For "the strength of sin is the law1;" it hath its condemning virtue from thence. Now by faith we are not "under the law, but under Gracem." When once we are incorporate into Christ's body, and made partakers of the new covenant,--though we are still under the law's cou

g Heb. viii. 13.

h John xvi. 21. 11 Cor. xv. 56.

i Mark ix. 23. m Rom. vi. 4.

k Hosea vi. 4.

duct, in regard of its obedience (which is made sweet and easy by grace), yet we are not under the law's malediction. So that though sin in a believer be a transgression of the law, and doth certainly incur God's displeasure; yet it doth not 'de facto' (though it do 'de merito') subject him to wrath and vengeance,-because every justified man is a person privileged", though not from the duties, yet from the curses, of the law. If the king should graciously exempt any subject from the law's penalty, and yet require of him the law's obedience; if that man offend, he hath transgressed the law, and provoked the displeasure of the prince, who, haply, will make him some other way to feel it yet his offence doth not nullify his privilege, nor void the prince's grace, which gave him an immunity from the forfeitures, though not from the observance, of the law. Adultery amongst the Jews was punished with death, and theft only with restitution: amongst us, adultery is not punished with death, and theft is. Now then, though a Jew and an Englishman be both bound to the obedience of both these laws, yet a Jew is not to die for theft, nor an Englishman for adultery; because we are not under the judicial laws of that people, nor they under our laws:-even so those sins, which to a man under the covenant of works do, 'de facto,' bring death, if he continue always under that covenant,-do only create a merit of death in those who are under the covenant of Grace, but do not actually exclude them from salvation, because, without infidelity, no sin doth peremptorily and 'quoad eventum' condemn.

But it may here farther be objected, How can I believe under the weight of such a sin? Or how is faith able to hold me up under so heavy a guilt? I answer, The more the greatness of sin doth appear, and the heavier the weight thereof is to the soul, there is the grace of God more abundant to beget faith, and the strength of faith is prevalent against any thing which would oppose it. To understand this, we

n Plane dicimus decessisse Legem quoad onera, non quoad justitiam. Tertul. de Pudicit. cap. vi.-Ad castigationem, non ad damnationem. Ibid. cap. xix. Evacuatur peccatum, non ut non sit, sed ut non obsit. Aug. de Peccat. Mer. et Remis. lib. 1. cap. xxxix. • Non filios Diaboli faciunt quæcunque peccata: filios autem Diaboli infidelitas facit, quod peccatum proprium vocatur. Aug. cont duas. Epist. Pelag. 1. 3. c. iii.

must note, that the strength of faith doth not arise out of the formal quality thereof; for faith in itself, as a habit and endowment of the soul, is as weak as other graces; but only out of the relation it hath to Christ. Faith denotes a mutual act between us and Christ; and therefore the faith of the Patriarchs is expressed in the apostle by saluting, or embracing P' they did not only clasp Christ, but he them again. So that the strength of faith takes in the strength of Christ, because it puts Christ into a man, who by his Spirit dwelleth and liveth in us. And here it is worth our observing, that the reason why the house, in the parable, did stand firm against all tempests, was, because it was founded upon a rock. Why? May not a weak superstruction of rotten and inconsistent materials be built upon a sound foundation? As a strong house falls from a weak foundation, may not, in like manner, a weak house, by a tempest, fall from a strong foundation? Surely, in Christ's temple it is not, as in ordinary material buildings. In these, though the whole frame stand upon the foundation, yet it stands together by the strength of the parts amongst themselves; and, therefore, their mutual weakness and failings do prejudice the stability of the whole. But, in the church, the strength of Christ the foundation is not an immanent, personal, fixed thing; but a derivative and an effused strength which runs through the whole building: because the foundation, being a vital foundation, is able to shed forth and transfuse its stability into the whole structure. Whatever the materials are of themselves, though never so frail,-yet being once incorporated in the building, they are presently transformed into the nature and firmness of their foundation. To whom coming as unto "a living stone," saith St. Peters, "ye also as 'lively stones' are built up a spiritual house;"— to ncte unto us the transformation and uniformity of the saints with Christ, both in their spiritual nature, and in the firmness and stability of the same.

More particularly, the strength of faith preserves us from all our spiritual enemies. From the Devil; he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and "the wicked one toucheth

P Heb. xi. 13.

Ephes. iii. 13. Gal. ii. 20.
s 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5.

r Matt. vii. 25.

him not." Above all, take the shield of faith, by which ye shall be able to quench "all the fiery darts of the wicked "." From the world; "This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith."-From our fleshly corruptions; "The heart is purified by faith." The law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ (that is, 'the law of faith') hath made me "free from the law of sin ","—that is, the law of the members, or fleshly concupiscence. And all this is strengthened by the power of God; not by faith alone are we kept, but "ye are kept," saith St. Peter", "by the power of God through faith unto salvation;”—and that not such a power as that is, wherewith he concurreth in the ordinary and natural operations of the creature, which proportioneth itself, and condescendeth unto the exigency of second causes, failing where they fail, and accommodating the measure of his agency to those materials, which the second causes have supplied (as we see when a child is born with fewer parts than are due to natural integrity, God's concurrence hath limited itself to the materials which are defective, and hath not supplied nor made up the failings of nature), but that power, whereby he preserves men unto salvation, doth prevent, bend, and carry the heart of man (which is the secondary agent) unto the effect itself; doth remove every obstacle which might endanger his purpose in saving the creature, and maketh his people a willing people.'

But you will say, Faith is, indeed, by these means stronger than sin when it worketh, but not when it sleepeth; and the working of faith, being dependent upon the faculties of the soul, which are essentially mutable and inconstant in operation, must needs be uncertain too: that sin, though it be far weaker than faith, may yet, when by our security faith is fallen asleep, surprise and kill it: even as Jael, a weak woman, upon the same advantage killed Sisera, a strong captain. But though faith sleep yet he that keepeth Israel, doth neither slumber nor sleep; and we are kept not only by faith, but by his power; which power worketh all our works for us and in us, giveth us both the will and the deed, the gift of continuing in his fear, and the will so to

continue". "The heart of the king," saith Solomon, that is, the most sovereign, unconquerable, peremptory, and unsubjected will in the world, "is in the hand of God," even as clay in the hand of the potter. So that though our hearts, in regard of themselves, be not only at large and indeterminate to any spiritual operations, but have an extreme reluctancy to all the motions of God's Spirit; yet, considering their subordination to God's merciful purposes, to the power of his grace, to his heavenly call according unto purpose, to the exceeding greatness and working of his mighty power, manifest it is that they are undeclinable mightily, by a hidden, wonderful, most effectual power, yea, by an omnipotent facility, and yet most sweetly and connaturally moved unto grace". They are all the frequent words of holy Austin, that champion of grace,-whose invaluable industry in that behalf all after-ages have admired, but hardly paralleled.

C

Now then for the farther establishing the heart of a man, seriously and searchingly humbled with the sense and consciousness of some great relapse (for what I shall say, can yield no comfort to a man in an unrelenting, obdurate, and persisting apostasy); let him consider the safety and firmness of his life in Christ upon these grounds.

First, God's eternal love and free grace, which is towards us the highest link of salvation, both in order of time, nature,

b Prima gratia quæ data est primo Adam, est illa, quâ fit ut homo habeat justitiam, si velit; secunda quæ potentior est in secundo Adam, plus potest, quâ etiam fit ut velit, et tantum velit, tantoque ardore diligat, ut carnis voluntatem, contraria concupiscentem, voluntate spiritus vincat, &c. vid. Aug. de Corrupt. et Grat. c. xi. xii. c Heb. iii. 1. Rom. viii. 28. d Vid. Aug. de Corrup. et Grat. cap. ix. xii. Contra Julian. lib. 5. cap. iv. De prædest. Sanct. cap. xvi. xvii. et Epist. 106. e Subventum est infirmitati voluntatis humanæ, ut Divinâ gratiâ indeclinabiliter et insuperabiliter ageretur, &c. Fortissimo Adamo permisit facere quod vellet, infirmos servavit, ut invictissimè nollent. Aug. de Corrupt. et Grat. cap. xii. f Non lege atque doctrina insonante forinsecus, sed interna atque occulta, mirabili ac ineffabili potestate, operatur Deus in cordibus hominum, non solum veras revelationes sed etiam bonas voluntates. Aug. de Grat. Christ. lib. 1. cap. xxiv,-Occultissima et efficacissima potestate. contr. 2 Epist. Pelag. lib. 1. cap. xx. • Habet Deus humanorum cordium, quò placet inclinandorum omnipotentissimam potestatem. De Corr. et Grat. cap. xiv.

h Non ut no

lentes credant, sed ut volentes ex nolentibus fiant. Cont. 2- Epist. Pelag. 1. 1. c. 19.-Agit Omnipotens in cordibus hominum etiam motum voluntatis, &c. De Grat. et Lib. Arb. cap. xxi.-Certum est nos velle cum volumus, sed ille facit ut velimus. Ib. cap. xvi. i Vid. Prosper. Contr. Collator. c. i.—Alvarez. de Auxil. 1. 1. Disp. 5. Rob. Abbot de Grat. in præfat.