414 876 RUIN AND RECOVERY, &C. Now since there may be habits or principles of faith,re- pentance and holiness, infused or inwrought immediately by divine power and grace, prior to all acts or exercises thereof; 'why may we not suppose, that beside the principles of light in- fused into the mind, whereby the judgment is convinced, there is an infused principle of holiness also formed or inwrought in the soul, in a physical or supernatural manner; by the Spirit or grace of God, which may excite and influence the will toward its Acts or volitions, but not constrain it ? I mean, whymay not the divine power, which' formed the soul, give it a propensity or habitual inclination to what is good, like that which Adam had the first moment of his creation, though in a lower degree? This is part of the image ofGod which he had at first, and which is now to be renewed in man: And as this principle was an infused habit in Adam, why may it not be so in every true convert now ? And further as this dici not necessitate the acts of the will to obedience, even in the day of inno- cence, so neither doth it now ; hut only gives it a disposition toward actual repentance and obedience, faith and holiness, at proper occasions : And I think this may very well be called new creation, regeneration, or resùrrectionfrom the dead, in the scriptural sense. I do not see that this concession destroys the moral government of God over man now, any more than it did over Adam in his innocence, and especially since all moral government bath its special regard to the actionswrought by the soul, rather than to the habits or principles which are in it ; prin- ciples and habits neither are nor can be directly under the com- mand of the will, asall actual volitions or actions are, which are thereforemost properly subject to moral regulations. I think all the rest of It's sentiments may stand just as he proposed them. I acknowledge, that there are several texts of scripture, which, in their literal sense, seem to speak the language of C, wherein the ruin of our nature, and its impotence to all that is good, is set forth in its strongest light, by the metaphors of blindness, and death in trespasses and sins: And the sovereignty of divine grace is described in its brightest, and most sovereign and insuperable influences. But still I 'cannot help querying, as both A and Rdo, whether this literal sense of those words, this absolute and necessary determination both of the mind and will, and all the powers of man in its first conversion, and in all futuregood actions, does not detract too much from God's moral government of the world ? And whether all these metaphorsand emblems, and bright representations of scripture, may not be sufficiently interpreted in plain language, and their proper sense, according to the explication of the grace of God, and its effica- cious influences, which R has macle ; especially if we take in the almighty infusion of a supernatural habit of holiness ; always
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