mend our services: When we confider all these difficulties, the great Task before us, the great indispositions within us, and the Avocations, Seductions, Snares and Violences that are alway ready to divert us from our work; we must confefs that they are Difficulties purely infuperable by our own ftrength; Nature must start afide from their Level like a Bow broken with too ftrong intention; we must confefs that in Equivalence to our Duty, and in proportion to Acceptance We can do nothing. 'Tis true indeed that there are other Graces of God befide this inward Operation we now treat of: There is foundness of Faculties, happiness of Temper, a fober Education, Choice of Imployments and Friends, the light of the Holy Scriptures, the prospect of future Punishments and Rewards, the Opportunities of Religious Advices, and the Monitions of Providential Events, all these are mighty Graces of God in their kinds, and we

Speak

fpeak of Men as living under the poffible advantages of all these; and yet nevertheless when we confider (in balance to these ) How the Tempers even of the Best Men are not exempt from treacherous propenfions to ill; How the Prefence of things does work much more forcibly upon our Affections than any Reasonings about things diftant can; How ftrong and delufive the Injections of Satan are, and how ftupifying and delirative every Act of Sin; How great a distance there is between keeping our felvés from scandalous Sins, and Raifing our selves to the height of a fervent Piety and Refigned Will: When we confi. der how our Saviour, amidst all his Preaching and Miracles, crys out, None can come to Me except the Father draw him, that is, He himfelf could not draw men as a Prophet, but only as a God; we muft ftill conclude that, without this Inward Princi ple of Sanctification supernaturally aiding us, we can do nothing.

St. Joh. 6.44.

'Tis

'Tis true indeed, and we readily acknowledge, that there is an Obfcurity fitting upon the face of this Difpenfation of Grace: For we cannot feel the Impreffions nor trace the footsteps of its diftinct working in us: The Measures of our Proficiency in Goodness seem to depend entirely upon those of our Own Diligence And God requires as much Diligence as if he gave no Grace at all: All this we acknowledge, and that it renders the Difpenfation obfcure: But then, on the other fide, it is as plain that there is the fame obfcurity upon every dispensation of God's Temporal Providence; and fo there is no more Reason for doubting of the one than of the other. They that will not allow that God does by any inward efficacy confer a found Mind, allow nevertheless that he gives Temporal good things; but how, in the mean time, does this Dispensation appear more than the former? For when God intends to blefs a

Man

Man with Riches, he does not open Windows in Heaven, and pour them into his Treasure; he does not enrich him with such distinguishable Providences as that wherewith he water'd Gideon's Fleece, when the Earth about it was dry; buc he endows such a Man with diligence and frugality, or else adorns him with fuch acceptable qualifications, as may recommend him to the opportunities of advancement, and thus his Rife to Fortunes, is made purely Natural, and the diftinct working of God in it does not appear: When God intends to deliver or enlarge a people, he does not thereupon destroy their Enemies, as he did once the Allyrians, by an Angel, or the Moabites by their own Sword; but he inspires fuch a people with a Couragious Virtue, and raises up among them Spirits fit to command, and abandons their Enemies to luxury and softness; and so the method of their Rifing, becomes absolutely Natural, and the diftinct work of God in it does not appear: And, in the same

manner,

manner, when God does by the inward Operation of his Grace promote a Man to Spiritual Good, and bring him to the State of undefiled Religion, he does not thereupon fuddenly change the whole frame of his Temper, and chain up all the movements of his natural affections, and infuse into him fuch a Syftem of Virtuous Habits as may make him Good without application and pains; but he works his Spiritual work by a gradual procefs, and human methods; inftilling into fuch a Man, first a confidering Mind, and then a fober Resolution, and then a diligent use of all fuch moral means as conduce to the forming and perfecting of every particular virtue: And now while God, in all these Instances does work in a human and ordinary way, and never fu perfedes the power of Nature, but requires her utmoft Actings, and only moves and directs, and affifts her where she is weak, and incompetent for her

work;