2. As God will not do us good without our knowledge, so not against our will and consent, and force us to be reconciled and saved, whether we will or no. Man is a reasonable creature, a free agent, and God governeth all his creatures according to their receptivity. With necessary agents, he worketh necessarily; with free agents, freely; a will is required on our parts : Kev. xxii. 17, ' Whosoever will ; ' and Ps. ex. 3, ' His people shall be a willing people in the day of his power.' Their hearts are effectually inclined to accept of what God ofFereth. All that receive the faith of Christ, receive it most willingly, and forsake all to follow him : Acts ii. 41, ' They gladly received his word ;' then was that prophecy in part verified.
3. God will not work this will and consent by an imposing force, but by persuasion, because he will draw us ' with the cords of a man,' Hosea iv. 14 ; that is, in such a way and upon such terms as are proper and fit- ting for men. God dealeth with beasts by a strong hand of absolute power, but with man in the way of counsel, entreaties and persuasions, as he acted the tongue of Balaam's ass, to strike the sound of those words
284 SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. [SeR. XXXVII.
in the air, not infusing discourse and reason : therefore it is said, Num. xxii. 28, ' He opened the mouth of the ass ; ' but when he dealeth with man he is said ' to open the heart,' Acts xvi. 14 ; as inwardly by a secret power, so outwardly by the M'ord so offered, that they attended. That is a rational way of proceeding, so to mind as to choose, so to choose as to pursue ; men is drawn to God in a way suitable to his nature : —
4. To gain this consent the word is a most accommodate instrument. I prove it by two arguments.
[1.] From the way of God's working, physically, morally, powerfully, sapientially. The physical operation is by the infusion of life ; the moral operation is by reason and argument. Both these ways are necessary in a condescension to our capacities ; foriiter 'pro te, Domine, suaviter 2^To me ; God worketh strongly, like himself, and sweetly, that he may attemper his work to our natures and suit the key to the wards of the lock. Both these ways are often spoken of in scri])ture : John vi, 44, 45, ' No man can come unto me except the Father draw him ; as it is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God.' They are taught and drawn, so taught that they are also drawn and inclined ; and so drawn, as also taught, as itbecometh God to deal with men. Therefore sometimes God is said to create in us a new heart, making it a work of power ; Ps. li. 10, ' And we are his workmanship created to good works,' E])h. ii. 10. Sometimes to persuade and allure ; Hosea ii. 15, ' I will allure her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her;' Gen. ix. 27,' The Lord shall persuade Japhet,' by fair and kind entreaties, draw them to a liking of his ways. The soul of man is deter- mined to God, by an object without and a quality within. The object is propounded by all its qualifications, that the understanding may be informed and convinced, and the will and affections persuaded in a potent and high way of reasoning ; but this is not enough to determine man's heart without an internal quality or grace infused, which is his physical work upon the soul. There is not only a propounding of reason and arguments, but a powerful inclination of the heart, and so we are by strong hand plucked out of the snares of death. Both are necessary ; the power, without the word or persuasion, would be a brutish force, and so .offer violence to our faculties. Now God doth not oppress the liberty of the creature, but preserve the nature and interest of his workmanship; on the other side, the ])ersuasion, offers of a blessed estate without power, will not work ; for if the word of God cometh to us in word only, but not in power, the creature remaineth, as it was, dead and stupid.
[2.] If we consider the impediments on man's part. The word is suited as a proper cure for the diseases of men's souls. Now these are ignorance, slightness, and impotency.
(1.) Ignorance is the first disease set forth by the notions of darkness and blindness, Eph. v. 8 ; 2 Peter, i. 9. We are so to spiritual and heavenly things. Though men have the natural power of understand- ing, yet no spiritual discerning, so as to be affected with, or transformed by, what they know, 1 Cor. ii. 14 ; no saving knowledge of the things which pertain to the kingdom of God, or their everlasting happiness. This is the great disease of human nature ; worse than bodily blindness, because they are not sensible of it : Eev. iii. 17, ' Thou thoughtest that thou wast rich, and increased with goods, and knowest not that thou art