1. For the first, that a Christian hath a ivill and power to do good, this is necessary. For in all estates, whether a man be good or bad, his will is the chief; and therefore, in conversion of any one, the will and judgment is first wrought upon and converted. And therefore this may be noted to
* Consult Dr Faithful Teate's searching and quaint treatise ' Right Thoughts the Righteous Man's Evidence : a Discourse proving our estate, God-ward, to be as our Thoughts are. Directing how to try tliem and ourselves by them,' &c. 12mo, 1669.— G.
I That is, of being a ' stumbling-block. — G.
THE CHRISTIAN WORK. 15
shew US our estates, whether we be good or not. If we bo good, we will that which is good, and choose the better part ; for those that choose the worst ever are opposite to the best. Their estate is naught, let them boast what they will. The Christian therefore ever hath a will to do, though many times he doth not what he will, being sometimes (for secret causes best known to God) kept by him from performing their wills. David would have built a temple, and Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac. Other times hindered by corruptions. The will, or to will, saith Paul, is present, but not the deed, Rom. vii. 18; and Christ saith, 'The spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak,' Mat. xxvi. 41. If we do therefore any good, the deed is God's. If we will it, the will is God's. And then we please God when we will that which God wills, and not when we do that which God wills not.
2. Secondly, This power that ive have, ire have it not from ourselves, but God (jives it to us. Some things are done for us which were neither wrought by us nor in us ; and thus Christ's death was wrought. Some things wrought in us, not by us, as our first work of conversion. Other things are wrought both in us and by us, and these are all good works after conver- sion. This will whereof we speak is wrought in us by God, as we be his temples, and the deed is wrought by us as instruments of God's working in us. Thought is not so much as will, it being but a way to it. Yet can we not think a good thought without the Spirit of God working in us. For we have no life at all, but are ' dead in sins and trespasses,' much less can we have any motion to that which is good for ourselves.
Quest. But it will be demanded, how can the work be done by God, and yet we work the same work ?
Ans. I answer, in every work that is done, there is God's power and man's joined together. But how ? So far as we think or will, it is from us, but to think or will that which is good, that is from God. We work not as horses draw together and equally. We are not co-ordinate, but subordinate. We work as understanding creatures. But God guides our understanding to this or that as he pleases. We hear, but God he bores the ear first. Lydia believed, but God opened her heart, and framed it to believe. Acts xvi. 14. We think, but God gives us to think well.
3. In the next place we are to shew, that this work of God in us is a powerful icork. It determines our will. God deals not pi'r omnipotoitiavi to constrain our wills to this or that which is contrary to the will, but he gives us to will that which he wills. Now when God intends that man shall do anything, he gives him a will to do it ; and in this respect his work is powerful in us. Magnify therefore this power, that preserves us in the midst of temptation, even as it preserved the three children in the fire from burning, Dan. iii. 27 ; that makes earth to be in heaven ; and labour to find experience of this power in thee, the want of the sense whereof brings much want of inward comfort of God's Spirit.
4. In the next place, note that this work is inward within us, not without us. He uses exhortations, monitions, allurements, but he puts power to these to prevail: Fortiter pro te, snaviter pro me, Doinine, saith the Father {b.) For God may viork fortiter, strongly, and yet liberty be preserved too, as it is evident in the angels. For freedom consists not in doing this or that ad libitum as we say ; but then are we free and at liberty, when we do any- thing out of a sound judgment. The angels see good reason why they should depend on God, and man seeing that happiness only hes in the enjoyment of the favour of God, do voluntarily depend on him. God there-
16 TIIK CnniSTIAN WORK.
fore enters into the heart, changes the stony heart into a heart of flesh, takes away all rebellious dispositions of our heart, and makes them pliable to his will.
5. Come we in the next place to consider the perfection and entireness of this tvork. God, he is * Alpha and Omega, the author and finisher of our faith,' Heb. xii. 2, and the beginning and perfection of every good thing is from him. Onine honum, a sinnwo Bono ; and therefore he is the cause of the not doing of that which is not done ; he is cmisa quiescendo, as well as agendo. For why is a thing not, but because he gives it not a being ? So that all the ill which we will not, is of him. We should therefore be as thankful to him for any sin he keeps us from, as for any good that he causes lis to perform ; for there is not any sin that another hath committed, but if God had pleased I might have committed. This is an excellent point to teach us humility. Note therefore hence,