And this holiness, in the first place, doth not consist in any single acts of obedience unto God, though good in their own nature, and ac- ceptable unto him ; for such acts may be performed, yea, many of them, by unholy persons, with examples whereof the Scripture
474 THE POSITIVE WORK OF THE SPIRIT [BOOK IV.
abouudeth. Cain's sacrifice and Ahab's repentance were signal single acts of obedience materially, yet no acts of holiness formally, nor did either make or denominate them holy. And our apostle tells us that men may " give all their goods to feed the poor, and their bodies to be burned, and yet be nothing," 1 Cor. xiii. 3 ; yet in single acts who can go farther? Such fruits may spring from seed that hath no root. Single acts may evidence holiness, as Abraham's obedience in sacrificing his son, but they constitute none holy; nor will a series, a course, a multiplication of acts and duties of obedience either constitute or denominate any one so, Isa. i. 11—15. All the duties, a series and multiplication whereof are there- rejected for want of holiness, were good in themselves, and appointed of God. Nor doth it consist in an habitual disposition of mind unto any out- ward duties of piety, devotion, or obedience, however obtained or acquired. Such habits there are, both intellectual and moral. In- tellectual habits are arts and sciences. When men, by custom, usage, and frequent acts in the exercise of any science, art, or mystery, do get a ready facility in and unto all the parts and duties of it, they have an intellectual habit therein. It is so in things moral, as to virtues and vices. There are some seeds and sparks of moral virtue remaining in the ruins of depraved nature, as of justice, temperance, fortitude, and the like. Hence God calls on profligate sinners to re- member and " show themselves men," or not to act contrary to the principles and light of nature, which are inseparable from us as we are men, Isa. xlvi. 8, These principles may be so excited in the exercise of natural light, and improved by education, instruction, and example, until persons, by an assiduous, diligent performance of the acts and duties of them, may attain such a readiness unto them and facility in them as is not by any outward means easily changed or diverted; and this is a moral habit. In like manner, in the duties of piety and religion, in acts of outward obedience unto God, men by the same means may so accustom themselves unto them as to have an habitual disposition unto their exercise. I doubt not but that it is so unto a high degree with many superstitious persons. But in all these things the acts do still precede the habits of the same nature and kind, which are produced by them and not other- wise. But this holiness is such a habit or principle as is antecedent unto all acts of the same kind, as we shall prove. There never was by any, nor ever can be, any act or duty of true holiness performed, where there was not in order of nature antecedently a habit of holi- ness in the persons by whom they were performed. Many acts and duties, for the substance of them good and approvable, may be per- formed without it, but no one that hath the proper form and natuie of holiness can be so. And the reason is, because every act of true
CHAP. VI.] IN THE SANCTIFICATION OF BELIEVERS. 475
holiness must have something supernatural in it, from an internal renewed principle of grace ; and that which hath not so, be it other- wise what it will, is no act or duty of true holiness.
And I call this principle of holiness a habit, not as though it were absolutely of the same kind with acquired habits, and would in all things answer to our conceptions and descriptions of them; but we only call it so because, in its effects and manner of operation, it agreeth in sundry things with acquired intellectual or moral habits. But it hath much more conformity unto a natural, unchangeable in- stinct than unto any acquired habit. Wherefore God chargeth it on men, that in their obedience unto him they did not answer that in- stinct which is in other creatures towards their lords and benefactors, Isa. i. 8, and which they cordially observe, Jer. viii. 7. But herein God " teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven," Job xxxv. 11.
This, therefore, is that which I intend, — a virtue, a power, a prin- ciple of spiritual life and grace, wrought, created, infused into our souls, and inlaid in all the faculties of them, constantly abiding and unchangeably residing in them, which is antecedent unto, and the next cause of, all acts of true holiness whatever. And this is that, as was said, wherein the nature of holiness doth consist, and from which, in those that are adult, the actual discharge of all duties and works of holiness is inseparable. This abideth always in and with all that are sanctified, whence they are always holy, and not only so when they are actually exercised in the duties of holiness. Hereby are they prepared, disposed, and enabled imto all duties of obedience, as we shall show immediately ; and by the influence hereof into their acts and duties do they become holy, and no otherwise.