There is, therefore, in the first place, a disability or impotency unto all spiritual things to be performed in a spiritual manner, in all persons not horn again hy the Spirit; because they are spiritually dead. Whatever they can do, or however men may call what they do, unless they are endowed with a quickening principle of grace, they can perform no act spiritually vital, no act of life whereby we live to God, or that is absolutely accepted with him. Hence it is said, " The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be," Rom. viii. 7. " So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God," verse 8. Men may cavil whilst they please about this carnal mind, and contend that it is only the sensitive part of the soul, or the affections, as corrupted by pre- judices and [by] depraved habits of vice, two things are plain in the text; first. That this carnal mind is in all mankind, whoever they be, who are not partakers of the Spirit of God and his quickening power; secondly, That where it is, there is a disability of doing any thing that should please God: which is the sum of what we contend for, and which men may with as little a disparagement of their modesty deny as reject the authority of the apostle. So our Saviour, as to one instance, tells us that " no man can come to him except the Father draw him," John vi. 44. And so is it figuratively expressed where, all men being by nature compared unto evil trees, it is affirmed of them that they cannot bring forth good fruit unless their nature be changed. Matt. vii. 18, xii. 33. And this disability as to good is also compared by the prophet unto such effects as lie under a na- tural impossibility of accomplishment, Jer. xiii. 23. We contend not about ex2:)ressions. This is that which the Scripture abundantly instructeth us in : There is no power in men by nature whereby they are of themselves, — upon the mere proposal of their duty in spiritual obedience, and exhortations from the word of God unto the performance of it, accompanied with all the motives which are meet and suited to prevail with them thereunto, — [able] to perceive, know, will, or do any thing in such a way or manner as that it should be accepted with God, with respect unto our spiritual life unto him, according to his will, and future enjoyment of him, with- out the efficacious infusion into them, or creation in them, of a new gracious principle or habit .enabling them thereunto ; and that this is accordingly wrought in all that believe by the Holy Ghost, we shall afterward declare.
But it will be objected, and hath against this doctrine been ever so since the days of Pelagius, " That a supposition hereof renders all
CHAP. IV.] NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL, COMPARED. 289
exhortations, commands, promises, and tlireatenings, — which com- prise the whole way of the external communication of the will of God unto us, — vain and useless; for to what purpose is it to exhort blind men to see or dead men to live, or to promise rewards unto them upon their so doing? Should men thus deal with stones, would it not be vain and hidicrous, and that because of their im- potency to comply with any such proposals of our mind unto them ; and the same is here supposed in men as to any ability in sjDiritual things."
Ans. 1. There is nothing, in the highest wisdom, required in the application of any means to the producing of an effect, but that in their own nature they are suited thereunto, and. that the subject to be wrought upon by them is capable of being affected according as their nature requires.^ And thus exhortations, with promises and threatenings, are in their kind, as moral instruments, suited and proper to produce the effects of faith and obedience in the minds of men. And the faculties of their souls, their understandings, wills, and affections, are meet to be wrought upon by them unto that end ; for by men's rational abilities they are able to discern their nature and judge of their tendency. And because these faculties are the principle and subject of all actual obedience, it is granted that there is in man a natural, remote, passive 'power to yield obedience unto God, Avhich yet can never actually put forth itself without the effec- tual working of the grace of God, not only enabling but working in them to will and to do.
2. Exhortations, promises, and threatenings respect not primarily our present ability, but our duty. Their end is, to declare unto us, not what we can do, but what we ought to do ; and this is done fully in them. On the other hand, make a general rule, that what God commands or exhorts us unto, with promises made unto our obe- dience, and threatenings annexed unto a supposition of disobedience, w^e have power in and of ourselves to do, or we are of ourselves able to do, and you quite evacuate the grace of God, or at least make it
' " Magnum aliquicl Pclagiani se scire putant quanclo dicunt, non juberet Dcus quod scit nou posse ab bomine fieri, quis hoc nesciat ? sed ideo jubet aliqua qua; non possumus ut noverimus quid ab illo petere debeamus. Ipsa enim est fides qua; orando impetrat, quod lex imperat." — August, de Grat. et Lib. Arbit. cap. xvi.