37Q RUIN AND RECOVERY, &C.' beauty and excellency, which they can never see without this sovereign influence ; there must be an immediate, effectual, and irresistible operation* on the will and affections, to give them a new bent or bias, and an effectual turn from sin and the crea- ture, to God and holiness : And that this habit or principle of divine grace must not only be wrought into the soul as a new habit or principle, but it must be maintained every moment by the same effectual influences of grace, and it must be entirely awakened and excited into exercise in this manner, in every good thought, word or deed : For he thinks such scriptures as these require it, viz. We are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing, but our sufficiency is of God ; 2 Cor. iii. 5. TVe are dead in trespasses and sins; Ephes. ii. 1. We arealienated from the life of God through the blindness of our hearts ; chapter iv. 18. That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; John iii. 6. and the works of theflesh they do : They that are in the flesh cannot please God ; Rom. viii. 8. We must be born of the Spirit, or we cannot see the kingdom of God ; John iii. 5. Without Christ we can do nothing ; chapter xv. 5. No man can come unto Christ unless it be given him of the Father, or unless the Father draw him; chapter vi. 44, 65. Faith is the gift of God ; Ephes. ii. 8. Our good works must be wrought in God; John iii. 21. or thou, O Lord, hast wrought all our works in us ; Is. xxvi. 12. We must be born again ; John iii. 7. We must be new created unto good works; Ephes. ii. 10. We must be quickened or raised from the dead ; verses 5, 6. It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do, of' his own goodpleasure; Phil. ii. 13. Andmany other such scriptures which express the insufficiency of man, and the all-sufficient and sovereign grace of God, in the highest and most exalted language. A renounces and disclaims utterly this opinionof C, because he supposes it to be inconsistent with the fifth proposition, or God's moral government of the world For, saith he, if man- kind be so utterly destitute of all power whatsoever, to repent and accept of divine grace ; and if it is God himself, who, by immediate physical or supernatural influences, does irresistibly work in every good christian, a principle of repentance andholi- ness, by a sovereign and effectual turn and bias given to their wills, and moves thous to every act of duty, by sovereign, phy- sical, or supernatural impressions ; then men are no longer moral agents, and the freedom of their wills is Itst in a kind of necessary mechanism. They are acted and moved like so many * Though some of thisclass of writersuse the word irresistible, yet othersof them dislike it, because the subjects of this grace may and sometimes do resist the operations of this grace and spirit for a considerable time, but at last it must overcome; and therefore they rather chase is call it insuperable.
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