2. This is that I mean, that after conversion God still concurreth. He doth not only give the habit of grace, but actual help in the work of obedience. ' He worketh all our works in us,' Isa. xxvi. 12. His actual help is necessary to direct, quicken, strengthen, protect, and defend us. To direct us : Ps. Ixxiii. 24, ' Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel, and bring me to thy glory.' In our way to heaven, we need not only a rule and path, but a guide. The rule is the law of God, but the guide is the Spirit of God. To quicken and excite us by effectual motions : a drowsiness and a deadness is apt to creep upon our hearts, and we see in the same duty it is a hard matter to keep up the same frame of spirit, the same vigour of affection, life, and warmth ; and therefore we had need go to God often, as David : Ps. cxix. 37, ' Quicken thou me in thy way.' It is God which doth renew the vigour of the life of grace upon all occasions, when it begins to languish and droop. To corroborate and strengthen what we have received : Eph. iii. 16, the apostle prays there that he would ' strengthen with might by his Spirit in the inner man;' and, 1 Pet. v. 10, 'Make
Mat. VI. 10.] the lord's prayer. 139
you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.' There are many words heaped up there to show how God is interested in maintaining and keeping afoot that which he hath planted in the soul. In protecting and defending them against the incursions and assaults of the devil, who always lieth in wait to surprise the soul, to withdraw us from God. The regenerate are not only escaped out of his clutches, but are advanced and appointed to be Satan's judges, which an envious and proud spirit cannot endure ; therefore he maligns, assaults, and besiegeth them with temptations daily. Now, it is God that defends : John xvii. 11, ' Keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me ; ' by thy name — that is, by thy poiver.
3. God must not only help us in the general, and upon weighty occasions, but in every act, from the beginning of the spiritual life to the end. It is not enough to say that the first principles and motions are of God, but the flowing forth of all motions and actions, accord- ing to those principles : Phil. ii. 13, 'It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.' God not only gives the desire and purpose, but he gives grace to the good which we will and purpose to do. These two are distinct ; and we may have assistance in one kind and not in another ; willing and doing, I mean, are dif- ferent. Paul saith, Rom. vii. 18 : 'To will is present with me ; but how to perform that which is good I find not.' To will is more than to think; and to exert, and put forth our will into action, it is more than both ; and in all we need God's help. We cannot think a good thought, nor conceive a holy purpose, much less perform a good action, without God, so that every moment we need renewed strength. As long as the work of grace is powerful and renewed in us, so long we are kept in a warm and healthful frame; but we grow vain, loose, earthly, carnal again, and off from God, when this heat and warmtli of grace is withdrawn ; and therefore God still concurreth in the whole business of our obedience to him.
II. Having showed what I mean, and how far God is interested in this work, what need we have to desire we may do his will ; let us prove it. And because it is a weighty point, I shall prove it by parts.
1. As to the first grace, that it is God alone which frames our hearts to the obedience of his will.
2. That when we are thus framed by grace, after conversion, it is God still concurs, and must help us to do his will.
First, As to the first grace, I shall prove that it is God alone, by the power of his own Spirit, which frames our hearts to the obedience of his will. This will appear by considering: —
(1.) What man is by nature.
(2.) The words by which our cure is expressed, and the way God takes to put us into a course of obedience.
(3.) What the scripture speaks as to the utter impotency of man, to the framing of his heart to the obedience of God's will.
(1.) First, This will appear by those notions or emphatical terms by which the scripture doth set forth man's condition before God works upon him. He is one that is ' born in sin : ' Ps. li. 5, ' Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me;' and things natural are not easily altered. And as he is born in sin, so he
140 AN EXPOSITION OF [MaT. VI. 10.
is greedy of sin: Job xv. 16, ' He dririketh in iniquity like water;' it noteth a vehement propension, as greedy to sin as a thirsty man to (h'ink. Thirst is the most implacable appetite, hunger is far better borne. It is the constant frame of his heart : Gen. vi. 5, ' Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually.' Oh, how many aggravating and increasing circumstances are there named. There is a mint that is always at work ; the mind is coining evil thoughts, and the heart evil desires and carnal motions; and the memory is the closet and storehouse where they are lodged and kept. This is the case of man, born in sin, greedy and thirsty of sin, and one whose thoughts are evil continually.