CHAP, ir.] SANCTIFICATION A PROGllESSIVE AVORK. 393
Then doth he cause us to " hear a word behind us, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when we turn to the right hand, and when we turn to the left," Isa. xxx. 21. When Ave are at a loss, and know not what to do, and are ready, it may be, to consult with flesh and blood, and to divert to irregular courses, he speaks effectually to us, saying, " No ; that is not your way, but this is it," — namely, to act faith, pa- tience, submission to God, adding one grace to another, binding our hearts thereby to our duty. 8. He actually excites and sets all needful graces at work in the way and manner before spoken unto.
This, then, is to be fixed, that all this increase of holiness is immedi- ately the w^ork of the Holy Ghost, who therein gradually carries on his design of sanctifying us throughout, in our whole spirits, souls, and bodies. There is in our regeneration and habitual grace received a nature bestowed on us capable of growth and increase, and that is all; if it be left unto itself, it will not thrive, it will decay and die. The actual supplies of the Spirit are the waterings that are the im- mediate cause of its increase. It wholly depends on continual influ- ences from God. He cherisheth and improves the work he hath begun with new and fresh supplies of grace every moment: Isa. xxvii. 3, " I the Loed will water it every moment." And it is the Spirit which is this water, as the Scripture everywhere declares. God the Father takes on him the care of this matter ; " he watcheth over his vineyard to keep it." The Lord Christ is the head, fountain, and treasure of all actual supplies; and the Spirit is the efficient cause, communicating them unto us from him. From hence it is that any grace in us is kept alive one moment, that it is ever acted in one single duty, that ever it receives the least measure of increase or strengthening. With respect unto all these it is that our apostle saith, " Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," Gal, ii. 20. Spiritual life and living by it, in all the acts of it, are imme- diately from Christ.
I concern not myself much how moved virtue, that is no more, is preserved and sustained in the minds and lives of men, though I am not ignorant of the precepts, directions, and instructions, wdiich are given unto that end by some of old and some of late. But for grace and holiness, we have infallible assurance that the being, life, continuance, and all the actings of it, in any of the sons of men, depend merely and only upon their relation unto that spring and fountain of all grace which is in Christ, and the continual supplies of it by the Holy Spirit, whose work it is to communicate them. Col. iii. 8; John xv. 5; Col. ii. 19.
There is no man who hath any grace that is true and saving, that hath any seed, any beginning of sanctification or holiness, but the Holy Sijirit, by his watchful care over it, and supplies of it, is able to preserve
394 SANCTIFICATION A PROGRESSIVE WORK. [BOOK IV.
it, to extricate it from difficulties, to free it from opposition, and to increase it unto its full measure and perfection. Wherefore, " let the hands that hang down be lifted up, and the feeble knees be strength- ened." We have to do with him who " will not quench the smok- ing flax nor break the bruised reed." And, on the other side, there is none who hath received grace in such a measure, nor hath so con- firmed it by constant, uninterrupted exercise, as that he can preserve it one moment, or act it in any one instance or duty, without the continual supplies of new actual grace and help from him who work- eth in us to will and to do; for saith our Lord Christ unto his apos- tles, and in them to all believers, the best and strongest of them, " Without me ye can do nothing," John xv. 5. And they who of themselves can do nothing, — that is, in a way of living unto God, — cannot of themselves preserve grace, act it, and increase it ; which are the GTeatest things we do or are wrought in us in this world. Where- fore God hath, in infinite wisdom, so ordered the dispensation of his love and grace unto believers, that all of them living upon the con- tinual supplies of his Spirit, none may have cause, on the one hand, to faint or desjiond, nor occasion, on the other, unto self-confidence or elation of mind ; that so " no flesh may glory in itself, but he that glorieth may glory in the Lord." And, therefore, as he greatly en- courageth the weak, the fearful, the faint, the disconsolate and dejected, and that by the engagement of all the holy properties of his nature in and unto their assistance, Isa. xxxv. 3-6, xl. 27-31 ; so he warns them who suppose , themselves strong, steadfast, and im- movable, " not to be high-minded, but to fear," Rom. xi. 20, because the whole issue of things depends on his sovereign supplies of grace. And seeing he hath promised in the covenant to continue faithfully these supplies unto us, there is ground of faith given unto all, and occasion of presumption administered unto none.