gt8 The Ccfpel-lYl,ftery' Direa. Vh .f readily,reply, they have no cure ground to trut on God or Cïhrift for any faving grace, according to this doftrine, before they have performed this con- dition, at leafs in a fincere refolution of obedience, and that they are as unable to bring their hearts to fuch a refolution, as a dead man is to raise himfelf out of the grave. Take another infl:ance. The me- thod of the doctrineof works is You muff love God firfl., and then on that condition he will love you a- gain; whereas, on the contrary, " we love God, be- caufe he loved us first," t John iv. 19. And if God fufpend his love to us upon any condition, our love to him will not be abfolute, but fuîpended up- on the fame condition, and no way contrary to an aaual hating of him. 5 thly, The law is fo far from healingour finful cor- ruption, that it proveth rather an occafion of finful ¡notions and a1ings in thofe that feek falvation by the works of it. l'his cometh to pafs by reafan of the power ofour natural corruption; which is ftirred up and rageth the more, when the holy and juft law of God is fet in oppofition again ft it; fo that the fault it not in the law, but in our hearts. Thofe that find not this by their own experience, fbould believe the Apottle Paul, who teacheth it plainly, and that from his own experience, Rom. vii. 5, 14. He affirmeth) that there are motions of f ri by the law, in a flefhly Rate: and that fin, taking occafion by the command- ment, " Thou ¡halt- not covet," wrought in him all manner of concupifcence, deceived him, flew him, became exceeding fitful; and that without the law; he was alive, and fin dead; but, when the command- ment came, fin revived, and he died He theweth the caufe of this irreconcileable enmityand contra- riety between his finful nature, and the law: "The law is spiritual; but I am carnal, fold under fin." Take notice here, from the reafon given by the A- pottle, that the doìriue of falvation by fincere obe- t ience, will have the fame event. Corrupt nature is
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