' Our author quotes from Parker's " Defence and Continuation of the Ecclesiastical Polity," etc. See page 121 of this volume Ed.
228 WORKS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT [BOOK III.
their own souls, is one great cause of that lifeless and unprofitable ministry which is among us.
2. It is likewise the duty of all to whom the word is preached to inquire also into it. It is unto such to whom the apostle speaks, 2 Cor. xiii. 5, '' Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith ; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" It is the concernment of all individual Christians, or professors of Christian religion, to try and examine themselves what work of the Spirit of God there hath been upon their hearts; and none will deter them from it but those who have a design to hoodwink them to perdition. And,— (1.) The doctrine of it is revealed and taught us; for " secret things belong imto the, Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong imto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of the law," I)eut. xxix. 29. And we speak not of curious inquiries into or after hidden things, or the secret, veiled actions of the Holy Spirit; but only of an upright endeavour to search into and com- prehend the doctrine concerning this work, to this very end, that we might understand it. (2.) It is of such importance unto all our duties and all our comforts to have a due apprehension of the na- ture of this work, and of our own concernment therein, that an inquiry into the one and the other cannot be neglected without the greatest folly and madness. Whereunto we may add, (3.) The danger that there is of men being deceived in this matter, which is the hinge whereon their eternal state and condition doth absolutely turn and depend. And certain it is that very many in the world do deceive themselves herein : for they evidently live under one of these pernicious mistakes, — namely, either, [1.] That men may go to hea- ven, or *' enter into the kingdom of God," and not be " born again," contrary to that of our Saviour, John iii. 5 ; or, [2.] That men may be " born again," and yet live in sin, contrary to 1 John iii. 9.
CHAPTER II.
works of the holy spirit preparatory unto regeneration.
Sundry things preparatory to the work of conversion — Material and formal dis- positions, with their difference — Things in the power of our natural abilities required of us in a way of duty — Internal, spiritual effects wrought in the souls of men by the word — Illumination — Conviction of sin — Consequents thereof — These things variously taught — Power of the word and energy of the Spirit distinct- — Subject ot this work; mind, affections, and conscience — Nature of this whole work, and difference from saving conversion farther de- clared.
First, in reference unto the work of regeneration itself , positively/
CHAP. II.] PREPAEATOKY UKTO REGENERATION. 229
considered, we may observe, that ordinarily there are certain previous and preparatory works, or workings in and upon the souls of men, that are antecedent and dispositive unto it. But yet regeneration doth not consist in them, nor can it be educed out of them. This is, for the substance of it, the position of the divines of the church of England at the synod of Dort, two Avhereof died bishops, and others of them were dignified in the hierarchy. I mention it, that those by whom these things are despised may a little consider whose ashes they trample on and scorn. Lawful, doubtless, it is for any man, on just grounds, to dissent from their judgments and determinations;^ but to do it with an imputation of folly, with derision, contempt, scorn, and scofiing, at what they believed and taught, becometh only a generation of new divines amongst us. But to return ; I speak in this position only of them that are adult, and not converted until they have made use of the means of grace in and by their own reasons and understandings ; and the dispositions I intend are only mate7'ially so, not such as contain grace of the same nature as is regeneration itself. A material disposition is that which disposeth and some way maketh a subject fit for the reception of that which shall be com- municated, added, or infused into it as its form. So wood by dry- ness and a due composure is made fit and ready to admit of firing, or continual fire. A formal disposition is where one degree of the same kind disposeth the subject unto farther degrees of it; as the morning light, which is of the same kind, disposeth the air to the re- ception of the full light of the sun. The former we allow here, not the latter. Thus, in natural generation there are sundry dispositions of the matter before the form is introduced. So the body of Adam was formed before the rational soul was breathed into it ; and Ezekiel's bones came together with a noise and shaking before the breath of life entered into them.