Object. Dotlrine. Practical Chriftianity, work, if the Apoflle had faid, God wiil not affift you, and therefore look to your felves. But yet there are two ways without torturing the Words, whereby we may make them confers wherein their great Strength lies. The one is by reducing this Reafon to the Duty. And the other is by referring it to the manner of Performing of the Duty. (1 .) Firff, If we refer it to the Duty of working out Salvation, then the Force and Strength of it lies in the Confideration of that Aid and Affiftauce that God by working in us affords us, to the working out of our own Salvation. Work? 11fhy, .Alas may fomr fay, How can we work ? Are not the Duties of Obedicrzct Divim and Suptr71atural? And is it not an Almighty Power al~ne that can inable I# to do what is Supernatural? Are we ornnip9tcnt? Doth not God herein plainly jeck Advantages againjJ us, in bidding m thw to ~Vork, 1vho ha"..e no Hands, nor Strength to Work with? No, by no means, for what God Commands us to dO", he will affift us in the poing of it. And thou!;",h Obedience be Supernatural, and we are Weak and Impotent, yet God is Omnipotent: Work therefore, for thisOmnipotentGod works in you, both to Will and to Do. And thus appears the force of the Rcafon, if you apply it to the Duty. Now if you thus refer it, then Obferve, That all Ability in, and all lncouragement to Obedience proceeds from God's working in us what he requireth from us. And thus as Chrifi: faid, my Father worketh hitherto, and I work: So may a Weak Chrifrian fay, what I do, is above my own Strength indeed ; but my God and my Father worketh hitherto in me, and therefore it i ' that I am inabled thus to work. (2.) Secondly, If we refer this Reafon to the manner of performing of Obedi· ence, that it muft be with Fear And Trembling; as if the Exhortation run thus, Be bumble and awful in your Obedience, For it is God who worketh in you both tO wi!J and to do, and then it carries a double force with it. FirH, That the due Confideration of God's working in us, is the grcateft inducement imaginable to a Self-debafing Humiliation. There is nothing th<tt will fooner tak~ down Pharifaical Pride and Boafting, than fometimes to be Catechifing our felves with thofe two or three Queftions and Interrogatories of the Apoftle; W"ho made thee to differ? What haft thou that thou didft not receive? Now tf thou haft received it, WhydoftthouBMH tU ifthouhadHnotreceivedit? 2Cor. 13. 7· Why daft thou Boafr and Glory, 0 vain weak Man, when all thou haft and all thou dolt is from God's free and arbitrary working in thee? Alafs, there is nothing of all thy Graces or Duties to be afcribed unto thy felf, unlefs it be the Imperfections and Weakneffes of them. And this lhould caufe us when we arc moft firongly carried out in the ways of God, and in the Duties of Holy Obedience, moft of all to renounce our felves, and our own fufficiency; and look upon it as an evident Argument that of our felves we are able to do nothing, becaufe through God we are inabled to do fa much, yea, to do all ~hings. Secondly, Since all we do is wrought in us by God, this fhouJd caufe us to obey with a Holy Fear and Reverence, left by our Mifcarriages we Jhould provoke God to withdraw from us, on whom depends all the Ability and Power we have to obey : It H God that worktth in you, and ~ therefore wo-1k out your own Sal1Jation with Fear and Trembling. This now !hall fuf!ice for the opening and explaining of the Words. That which I lhall prefs upon all, is the Duty of this Exhortation of the .Apojlle. And the Propofition I Jhall lay down from them, is this, That it is the Duty of every true Chriftian to work out his own Salvatio11 with Fear and TrembLing. Or thus, Every Chriftian, nay tvery Man ought to work for his Li1Jing, ew" for an Eternal Life. To mention places for the proof of this were to tranfcribc the Bible; we can no where open this Blejfed Book but we find this Truth proved to us, either di- !"etHy, or by confcquence, for it is the very Genius of the Scripture. And yet it IS frrange in thcfe Days to fee how dubioufiy fome Men (who would be thought admirers of Free Grace) fpeak of obedience and working, as if it were the brand of a legal Spirit, and as great a Stranger eo a Chriftian's Warrant, as it is to their pradice. Oh it is a foft and ea fie Doflrine to bid Men fit ftill and believe (as if God would Tranfiate Men to H•aven upon their Couches,) to tell them that all that
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