Blake - Houston-Packer Collection BT155 .B53 1653

94 The Covenant of Works Chap. ¡4. love, as the Apoftle (peaks, Gal. S , 6 And love be the end of the commandment, out of a pure heart, and of a good confcience and faith unfeigned, t Tim.!. ¶.Then Faith is a diflin& thing from love. If by Faith the Worthies of old wrought righteous ne ffe, then righ- teoufneffe may be diftinguifhed from it, Beb. t t. 33. As Faith- and Hope make two graces, fo Love a third, i Cor. 13. i 3. It is not the Gofpel -way to confound them together, they muff not be divided , but they are diftinguifhed. In this of repentance which is a Gofpel -Grace and condition of the Covenant, we may çFirft, A neceffary prerequifite to it. obferve Secondly, The effential parts of it. A neceffary prerequifite to this of repentance (as to the other of Faith) is conviction, compun&ion; godly forrow, unto which the name of repentance is often given, though it be of farre more narrow comprehenfion then the whoie work ; yea it reacheth not unto any thing which is of the effence of it , called repent- ance,as Tome fay, by a Synechdoche, the part for the whole; butI rather take it to be a Metonymy ; forrow is rather an adjund then a part of it, yet filch an adjund that fill accompanies it, and makes way for it, as the needle (as the Ancients ufe to expreffe it) enters the cloth, not to flay, but to let in the thread. An Of- fñcer enters an houfe, to throw out one inhabitant, and to let in another, but not to flay himfelf. It bath its name from paine, grief, or trouble, which affe&s the foul for fin, which muff needs follow when once we look upon it with fhame and wearifomneffe. Who can imagine a man to have his eyes opened,to fee that through his whole life be bath rifen up in hoftility and oppofiti- on againff God ? hath taken off that (tamp, which God in cre- ation put upon him ? run his foul upon everlafling hazard , and that without all fenfe of Marne, fear, or trouble ? who can ima- gine that the foul can leave fo ugly a path as that of fin formerly fo pleafant, and defired; without any grief or trouble of minde that he hath fo long held it? Or that any will make out for help in a Saviour till they fee themfelves through fin in a loft and un- done condit-i n? I (peak not of infants (who neither ad faith nor repentant ,-) but of thofe of growth , whom God works for himfelf by his Minifters ; As they have their call by the Word, fo Godly 'forrow is a prerequifite to repentance

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