*304 DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING AND BEEPING very last grain, and then suddenly that end which was downward is turned upward. When you stand at a loss between two highways, and know not whichway to go, as long as you are deliberate, you stand still : all the reasons that come into your mind do not stir you ; but the last reasonwhich resolves you, setteth you in motion. So is it in the change of a sinner's heart and life ; he is not changed (but preparingtowards it) while he is but deliberating, whether he should choose Christ or theworld. But the last reason that comet in and determineth his will to Christ, and makes bim resolve and enter a firm covenant with Christ, and say, ' I will have Christ for betteror worse; this maketh the greatest change that ever is made by any work in this world. For how can thére. be greater than the turning of a soul from the creature to the Creator ? So distant are the 'terms of this change. After this one turning act, Christ bath that heart, and the main bent and endeavors of the life,which the world had before. The man bath a new end, a new rule and guide, and a new master, Before the flesh and the devil were his masters,and nowChrist is his master. So that you must not think so meanly of the turning, determining, resolving act of grace, be- cause it lieth but in a gradual difference naturally from common grace. If a prince should offer a condemned beggar to marry her, and to pardon, her, and make her his queen, her deliberation may be the way to her consent, and one reason after another may bring her near to consenting. But it is that which turns her will to con- sent, resolve, covenant and deliver herself to him, which makes the great change in her state.. Yet all the, foregoing work of common grace bath a hand in the change, though only the turning resolution do effect it: it is the rest with this that Both it; as when the last grain turns the scales, the former do concur. I will conclude with Dr..Preston's words, in his " Golden Sceptre," page 210: Object. ' It seems, then, that the knowledge of 'a carnal man, andof a re- generate man, do differ but in. degrees and not in kind.' Answ. ' The want of degrees here alters the kind, as in numbers, the addi- tion of a degree alters the, species and kind.' Read for, this, also, Dr. Jackson, `S Of Saving Faith," sect. iii. chaps iii. pp. 297, 298, and frequently in other places. So much fpr that observation. Direct. XIV. Yet further I would have you to understand this: That as the least measure of saving grace is ordinarily undiscerni- ble from the greatest measure of common grace, (notwithstanding the greatness of the change that it makes,) so a measure somewhat greater is so hardlydiscernible, that it seldom brings assurance; and therefore it is only the stronger Christians that attain assurance ordinarily ; even those who have agreat degree of faith and love, and keep themmuch in exercise, and are very watchful and care- ful in, obedience; and consequently (most Christians being, of the
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