Baxter - BT785 B39 1657

7 8 Directionsforgetting andkeeping pleafure, and incurring the danger ofbeing utterly undone in our worldly flare (elpecially ifmen be rich who do therefore as hardlyget to Heaven as a Ca- mel through a needles eye:)and above all,the laying down ofour lives for Chrift : It cannot be expeaed, that godly men fhould perform all thefe with perfed Willingnefs : The fleffewill play its part, in pleading its own caufe;andwill (hive hard to maintain its own intereft : O the fhifts,the fubtil arguments.or at lead the clamorous & importunate contradiftions that all thefe duties will meet with in the beit,fo far as they areunrenewed,and their Graces weak I fo that you may well hence conclude that you are a firmer, bat you may not conclude that you aregracelefs becaufe of a backwardnefs and fome unwillingnefs to Duty. Yet your willingnefs mutt be greater then your unwillingnefs; and fo Chrift muff have the prevail- ing part ofyour will; and from that the denominas tion is ufually taken : fo that Scriptureufeth to affirm Gods people to be willing, even when they fail in the execution. So Paul Rom. 7.18. faith, To Will is pre- fent withme, when bow to do or perform hefound nit : that is, not to obey fo perfealy as he would do : not to love God fo intently and fervently ; not to fob- duepafllons and lufts fo throughly; not to watchout thoúghts,antd words,and wayes fo narrowly, and or- der them fo exaaly as the bent of his will didcon. fent to. And left any Arminian fhould pretend ('as they do ) that 'Paul fpeaks here in the perfon of an unregenerate man, as under the convi8i. ons of the Law, and not as a man regenerate.: it is plain in the text that he fpeaks of himfelf in the Bate which he was then in and that Rate was a rege- nerate

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