human being can determine; but that " God gives us both to will and to do," we are certain, since " every good and perfect gift cometh down from him." But at the same time we know, that man does and must " work out his own salvation with fear and trembling;" and so far is the Divine agency from being a reason for neglect on man's part, that it is the great motive and encouragement which God himself affords him to activity and exertion ^
Thus we have endeavoured to guard against the misrepresentations with which this subject is usually disguised and deformed.
We now come to state what our views of the sub- ject really are : —
We have before shewn, that man by nature has nothing in him that is spiritualli/ good, or good towards God. But in order to be made meet for heaven, he must be made spiritually good ; that is, he must love what God loves, and hate what God hates ; and be, and do, what God commands. Does God hate sin in all its branches ? he must hate it too, and lothe and abhor himself for having ever committed it. Does God love holiness ? he also must love a holy God, and holy exercises, and holy affections ; and must so love holy things, as to make them the continual objects of his most earnest pursuit : in relation to every thing that is holy and heavenly, "the same mind must be in him that was in Christ Jesus." Has God required him to come as a weary and heavy-laden sinner to Jesus, and to hve altogether by faith in Christ, for wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption ; and to glory, not in any human strength or goodness, but wholly and exclusively in the Lord Jesus Christ ? the man's mind must be brought to this, and Christ must be exceed- ing precious to him in all these points of view ; yea, he must '' determine to know nothing, and to rejoice in nothing, but Christ and him crucified." These views and these principles must not rest as mere notions in the head, but must be wrought into the « Phil. ii. 12, 13.