224 YI1E NATURE OF SANCTIFICATION lions are managed with the sane design. But, by these spect unto their proper ends, which shall afterwardsbe things is the gospel, and the faith of our Lord Jesus declared, is all that God requireth of us. And this he Christ made of none effect. Herein then, I say, lies declares in the tenor of the covenant with Abraham, theexpress opposition that is between the wisdom of Gen. xvii. I. I am God Almighty, walk before me, and God in the mystery of the gospel, and the g sss.ea sss be thou perfect. This is that, and this is all that I re- azgxos, the wisdom of the Mesh, or our carnal reason. quire of thee, namely, thy'holy obedience; for all other God, in his dealing with us by the gospel, takes upon things wherein thou art concerned, I. take them all ap- his own grace and wisdom the providing of an atone- on my own almighty poweror all-sufficiency, as he says cent for our sins, a righteousness whereby we may be elsewhere, that the whole of man, is to fear God, and justified before him, and the collation of eternal lifeupon keep his commandments. And the consideration hereof us, all in and by him, whoof God is made unto Its 'cols- taken singly, and by itself is sufficient, with all that don, aad righteousness, and sanctification, and redemp- have any regard unto God, or their own eternal sod- tion. But withal, he indispensably requires of us holi- fare, toconvince them of what importance these things,. loess and universal obedience, for the ends that shall be are unto them. declared afterwards. This way thinks the wisdom of Sect. 13. (6.) But neither yet are we left in this the flesh, or carnal reason, is mere foolishness, as our matter merely under the authority of God's command, apostle testifies, I Cor. i. IS, 23. But such a foolish- with an expectation of our compliance with it from our ness it is, that is wiser than men, ver. 25. that is a way own ability and power; God, moreover, bath promised so excellent, and fell of divine wisdom, that men are to sanctify us, or to'work this holiness in us, the consid- not able to comprehend it. Wherefore, in opposition eration whereof will give es yet a nearer prospect into hereunto, carnal reason concludes, that either what its nature. He that requires it of us, knows that we God requires'of us is to be done with respect 'unto the have it not of ourselves. When we were in our best ends mentioned, some or other, or all ofthem, or that oonditien by nature in the state Of original holiness, it is no great matter whether it bedone or no. Neither vested with the image of God, we preserved it not. can it discern of what use our holiness or obedience un- And is it likely that now, in the state of lapsed and de- to God should be, if it serve not unto some of these prayed nature, it is in our own power to restore our- purposes. For the necessity of conformity to God, of selves, to re-introduce the imageof God into oursouls, the renovation of Isis image in us before we are brought and that in a far more eminent manner than it was at unto the enjoyment of him in glory, the authority of -first created by -God? What needed all that contrivance his commands, the reverence of his wisdom, appointing of infinite wisdom and grace, for the reparation of our the way of holiness and obedience as the means of ex- nature by Jesus Christ, if holiness, wherein it loth pressing our thankfulness, glorifying him in the world, consist, be in our own power, and educed out of the and of coming to eternal life, it bath no regard unto. natural faculties of our souls: There can be no more But the first true saving light that shines by the gospel fond imagination befiti the minds of men, than that de- from Jesus Christ into our souls, begins to undeceive tiled nature is able to cleanse itself; or depravednature us in this matter. And there is no greater evidence of to rectify itself, or we, who have Jost that imageof God our receiving an evangelical baptism, or cf being bap- which he created in us, and with us, should create it tined into the spirit of the gospel, than the clear corn- again in ourselves by our own endeavours. Wherefore, pliunce of our minds with the wisdom of God herein. when God commandethand requireth as to he holy, he When we find suds constraining motives unto holiness commands us to be that, which by nature and of our- upon us, as will not allow Ilse least subdocting of our selves, we are not; and not only so, butthat which we souls from an universal attendance unto it, purely on have not of ourselves a power to attain unto. What- the ends of the gospel, without respect unto those now ever therefore is absolutely in our own power, is not of discarded, it is an evidence that the wisdom of God that holiness which God requireth of us. For what we Lath prevailed against that of the flesh in our minds. can do ourselves, there is neither necessity nor reason Wherefore holiness, with the fruits of it, with re- why God should promise' to work in us by his grace.
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