shewing to God more gratitude than others, and hibouring to serve him with every faculty both of body and soul ?]
2. We have greater assistances from him than others —
[Every man has, more or less, what may be called the common influences of the Spirit. For there is no man who has not occasionally felt some compunction for his sins, and some desire of amendment. But whence do " these good thoughts and holy desires proceed, but from God?" They would no more arise in the heart of fallen man than of the fallen angels, if they were not suggested by the Spirit of God'=. But believers have what may be called the special grace of God ; by which I understand, not a different kind of grace, but a different degree, even such a degree as shall prevail over all the resistance which it meets with in the soul*^. Nor is it only in order to their first conversion to God that they are so wrought upon, but through the whole of their lives are they preserved and strengthened by the same Spirit, in order to their final salvation*^. To what a degree this strength is com- municated to them, may be seen in various passages of Holy Writ: it is equal to that which God exerted in raising up Jesus Christ from the dead, and setting him at his own right hand, above all the principalities and powers of earth and helH. It is such as to display the powers of Omnipotence itself s, and to approve itself the workmanship of Hiiu who created the universe out of nothinar''.
All this is unknown to others, who, having never earnestly implored this aid, are left under the power of Satan, and are " carried captive by the devil at his will." And is not this a call upon them for exertion ? And does it not afford a just ground of expectation, that they shall do more than others who have no such assistance ?]
3. We make a greater profession of zeal for God than others —
[The generality not only make no particular profession of love to God, but account this very want of profession a sufficient reason for all the carelessness and indiffference which they ma- nifest. But the believer does not thus glory in his shame. He knows his obligations to God; nor is he ashamed to confess them. He knows that he has been redeemed by the blood of God's only dear Son ; and that, " having been bought with a price, he is bound to glorify God with his body and his spirit,
" 2 Cor. iii. 5. and v. 5. d. pg. ex. 3. Phil. ii. 13.
e 1 Thess. V. 23. f Eph. i. 19—21.
g Eph. iii. 16. and Col. i. 11. ^ Eph. ii. 10. 2 Cor. v. 17.