t 1 THE GENERAL WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT and exhortations of the scripture, which are openly de- signed to excite and draw forth our own endeavours? And this is indeed the principal difficulty wherewith some men seek to entangle and perplex the graceof God. But I answer: I. Let men imagine what absurd consequences they please thereon, yet that the Spirit of God is the author and worker of all grace in us, and of all the degrees of it, of all that is spiritually good inus, is a truth which we trust not forego, unless we intend to part with our Bi- bles also: for in them we are taught, Tlzat in us, that is, in ourflesh, theredwelleth no good thing, Rom. vii. 18. " That we are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing, as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God," 2 Cor. iii. 5. " Who is able to make all " grace abound towards us, that we may always have " all -sufficiency in all things abounding to every good work," chap. ix. 8. " But without Christ we can do " nothing," John xv. 5. " For it is God which work- " eth in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure,' Phil. ii. 13. To grant therefore that there is any spiri- tual good in us, or any degree of it, that is not wrought in us by the Spirit of God, both overthrows the grace of the gospel, and denies God tobe the only first, su- preme, and chiefest good; as also the immediate cause of what is so, which is to deny his very being. It is therefore certain, whatever any pretend, that nothing can hence ensue, but what is true, and'good, and use- ful to the souls of men: for from truth, especially such great and important truths, nothing else will follow. 2. It is brutish ignorance in any to argue in the things of God, from the effectual operations of the Spirit, un- to a sloth and negligence of our own duty. He that doth not know that God hath promised to work in us, in a wayof grace, what he requires from us in a way of duty, hath either never read the Bible, or doth not be- lieve it, or never prayed, or never took notice of what he prayed for: he is a Heathen, he bath nothing of the Christian in him, who doth not pray that God would work in him what he requires of him. This we know that what God commands, and prescribes unto us, what he encourageth us unto, we ought with all diligence and earnestness, as we value our souls, and their eter- nal welfare, to attend unto, and comply withal. And we do know, that whatever God bath promised, that he will do himself in us, towards us, and upon us: it is ourduty to believe that he will sodo. And to fan- cy an inconsistency between these things, is to charge God foolishly. 3, If there be anopposition between these things, it is either because the nature of man is not meet to be commanded, or because it needs not to be assisted. But that both these are false and vain suppositions, shall be afterwards declared: The Holy Spirit so worketh inos, as that he worketh by us; and what hedoth in us, is done by us; our duty it is-to apply ourselves unto his commands, according- to the conviction of our minds; and his work it is to enable us to perform them. 8. He that will indulge, or can do so, unto sloth and negligence in himself, on the account of the promised working of the Spirit of grace, may look upon it as an evidence, that he hath no interest or concern there- in. For he ordinarily givethnot out his aids and assis- tances any where, but where he prepares the soul with diligence in duty. And whereas he actuates us no otherwise, but in and by the facultiesof our own minds, it is ridiculous, and implies a contradiction; for aman to say he will do nothing, because the Spirit of God dotti all; for wherehe doth nothing, the Spirit of God doth nothing, unless it be merely in the infusion of the first habit or principle of grace, whereof we shall treat afterwards. 5. For degrees of grace and holiness which are en- quired after, they are peculiar unto believers. Now these are furnished with an ability and power to attend unto and perform those duties, whereon the increase of grace and holiness doth depend. For, although there is no grace, or degree of grace or holiness in believers, but what is wrought in them by the Spirit of God; yet ordinarily, and regularly, the increase and growth of grace, and their thriving in holiness and righteousness depend upon the use and improvement of grace receiv- ed, in a diligent attendance unto all those duties of obe- dience which are required of us, 2 Pet. i. 5, 6, 7. And methinks it is the most unreasonable and sottish thing in the world, for a man to be slothful and negligent in attendingunto those duties which God requireth of him, which all his spiritual growth depends upon, which the eternal welfare of his soul is concerned in, on pretence of the efficacious aids of the Spirit, without which he can do nothing, and which he neither path, nor can have, whilst he doth nothing. ,,----_
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