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ing the law of Moses: but this dangerous daubing with things unmixable, our holy apostle could not brook; both as reflecting on the honor of his master, and undermining their only foundation; and therefore to keep them from, or bring them off that perilous quicksand, he tells them expressly, these two cannot stand together in that matter; for if they be "circumcised, they are debtors to the whole law, and Christ is become of none effect to them,” be. they are fallen from grace." It is as if he had said, If you take in any part, though never so little, of legal observances, as necessary to your being justified, ye forfeit the whole benefit of gospel grace: the grace of Christ is sufficient for you; he is a Saviour complete in himself; and if you look, though but a glance, at any thing else, it is a renouncing of him: he will be a Saviour altogether, or not at all; and therefore he tells them again, and that with a kind of vehemency, that "if they be circumcised, Christ shall profit them nothing," Gal. 5: 2.

And as a man may not put in his claim for justification on account of his works, so neither of his faith, as if that were materially, or meritoriously, causal of justification: for faith itself, as it is the believer's act, comes under the notion of a work. Let us therefore consider what part it is that faith holds in this matter; lest, while we cast our works, as not standing with grace, we make a work of faith. It is faith's office to make the soul live wholly on the power and grace of another; which is to renounce selfability, as much as self-desert: to apprehend that righte ousness by which grace justifies: not only to be justified thereby upon our believing, but to work in us even that faith by which we apprehend it, Rom. 5: 2. He that will be saved, must come, not only as an ungodly person, but as a man without strength, chap. 5: 6. and as such, in himself, he must come to be justified freely by the grace of God, chap. 3: 24. For in him, only, can he have strength to believe, even as righteousness upon his believing, Isa. 45: 24. he must reckon himself an ungodly man, to the very instant of his justification. "The just indeed shall live by faith;" but it is not his own faith, or act of believ ing, that he lives by, though not without it; which also seems to be the apostle's meaning, where he says, "The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the son of God:

and I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," Gal. 2: 20. Where note, that as faith is the life of a believer, so Christ is the life of his faith; and he lives on Christ, by virtue of Christ's living in him.

Notwithstanding all which, it is evidently true, and must constantly be affirmed, that grace and works will still be together in the way of salvation (the one.doth not exclude the other;) only not as colleagues or joint causers thereof; but rather as a workman and his tools, which himself first makes, and then works with them. "By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." Eph. 2:18. Even this believing or acting faculty is a creature of grace's raising up; and therefore, in "the throne it is meet that grace should be above it. Works, therefore, how good soever, are not the cause of salvation: and if so, not the cause of election; for this, indeed, is the cause of them both: and works, if right and truly good, will always be ready to own their original, and to keep in their own place; where also they will be most considerable, and do the best service.

Arg, III. That election has no other foundation but the good pleasure of God's will, is further argued, from man's incapacity to afford any ground or motive to God for such a gift. Adam stood not so long as to beget a son in his own image: it is seen by his first born Cain, what all his natural seed would naturally be. And though some do presume to magnify man, and to speak of him at another rate; yet evident it is by scripture light, and the experi ence of those renewed, that man fallen is poor, blind, naked, and at enmity with all that is truly good; and that he is never more distant from God and his own happiness, than while in high thoughts of himself, glorying in his own understanding, strength, worthiness, freedom of will, improvement of common grace, and the like; for these make him proud and presumptuous, and to have slight thoughts of that special and peculiar grace, by which he must, if ever, be renewed and saved. But the Lord himself, who best knows him, reports the matter quite otherwise, and we know that his witness is true; namely, that "all the imaginations of their hearts are only evil continually," Gen. 6:5. that "their inward part is very wickedness," Psal. 5: 9. that "every man is brutish in his knowledge; altoge

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ther brutish and foolish; yea, even their pastors," Jer. 10: 8. 14. 21. that is, the very best and most intelligent among them: that "their hearts are full of madness," Eccl. 9: 3. "wise to do evil, but to do good have no understanding," &c. Jer. 4:22. And it was not thus only with the Gentile nations, who were left to walk in their own way; but even with the Jews who had all the means of becoming better that could be devised, Isa. 5: 4. excepting that of electing grace, which took in but a remnant: "they were called Jews, rested in the law, made their boast of God, knew his will, approved the things that were excellent; were confident that they were a guide of the blind, and a light to them that were in darkness, instructors of the foolish, teachers of babes," Rom. 2: 7.21. And yet all this while, and in the midst of all these high attainments, did not teach themselves: and where they are ranked together, he proves them to be "all under sin, none righteous, none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God, none that doeth good, no, not one, chap. 3: 10—18. Yea, this depravity of nature was so deep and indelibly fixed, that the Lord himself tells them, "The Ethiopian might as soon change his skin, as they learn to do well," Jer. 13: 23. All which, with abundantly more, bespeaks a condition extremely remote from yielding a cause or motive for this blessed election.

Arg. IV. If God's love to men had its rise from their love to him, it would not have that singular eminency in it, that is justly ascribed to it: "God so loved the world," John 3. 16. So as not to be expressed; so, as not to be paralleled; so, as not to be understood, until we come to that state wherein we shall know as we are known; nor then neither fully, because it is infinite. By this it is that God's love to man is so highly celebrated; "Herein is love; not that we love God, but that God loved us," 1 John 4: 10. And, "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us!" chap. 3: 1. which surely then is not after the manner of men; for even publicans do so, Matth. 5:46. and "sinners love those that love them," Luke 6: 32. but to love enemies, and while enemies (as to love a wife that is an adultress; and so to love her, as to win her heart back again;) this is God's love to his chosen.

But, notwithstanding these scriptures, with many others,

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seem purposely written to obviate such conceptions as would feign our loving of God to be the ground and motive of his love to us; yet, great endeavors there are to father election upon foreseen faith and works, which that they call the covenant of grace, has, they say, qualified and capacitated all men for; and which certain more pliant, ingenious, and industrious persons (as they speak) would attain unto, by the helps they have in common with other men: but this pedigree of election is excepted against, as being not rightly induced: for, 1. Men having (in Adam). divested themselves of all that was holy and good, the Lord could not foresee in them any thing of worth or desirable. ness, but what he himself should work in them anew, and that of pure grace and favor; for sin and deformity could not be motives of love. And that the elect, of themselves, were in no wise better than other men, is evident by the scriptures late quoted; where the Holy Ghost asserting the universal depravity of human nature, exempts not one. But if such excellent and distinguishing qualifications as faith and holiness had been foreseen, and so imputable to them, the spirit of truth would not have ranked them even with the children of wrath, Eph. 2: 3. as he doth. But, 2. If they were otherwise, what could they add unto God? or whereby could they oblige him? "He respecteth not any that are wise in heart," Job 37: 24. “If thou be righteous, what givest thou him?" chap, 35: 7. and, "who hath prevented me, (says the Lord,) that I should repay him?" chap. 41: 11. that is, who is he that is beforehand with God, in doing aught that might induce his favor? "He regardeth not persons, nor taketh rewards," Deut. 10: 17. he is not propitious to any for what they can do for him, or bring to him. Take Paul for an instance: he walked up to the light he had; was blameless; lived in all good conscience; knew no evil by himself,-a rare degree of legal righteousness!but that it was not this moved God to make him a chosen vessel, he thankfully acknowledgeth, with self-abasement, upon every occasion, Tit. 3: 5. 1 Tim. 1: 14. 2 Tim. 1: 9. 3. Faith follows election: God respects the person before his offering. But was not Abel respected as a believer, and his offering for his faith? yea, but that faith of his was not the primary cause of God's respecting him. If Abel's person had not been respected first, Abel had never been a

believer: for faith is the work and gift of God; and, according to the course of all judicious agents, he that will work, must first pitch on the subject he will work upon; and he that gives, on the person he will give unto. Besides, Abel could do nothing before he believed, that might move God to give him faith; for, till then he was in the flesh, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God," Rom. 8: 8. Heb. 11: 6. therefore it could not be Abel's foreseen faith that was the cause of God's respecting him. The scripture speaks often of iron-sinewed necks, and brazen brows; and of men's being in their blood, when the Lord said, they should live as also that God loved Jacob before he had done any good thing; and that the saints love God because he loved them first: but no where of foreseen faith and holiness, as the cause and ground of God's love to men. 4. Faith and holiness are middle things: they are neither the foundation nor top-stone of election. They are to sovereign grace, as stalks and branches are to a root: by which the root conveys its virtues into its principal fruit. Eph. 2: 8. "By grace are ye saved, through faith." 2 Thess. 2:13. "Chosen to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth." They are no more the cause of election, than the means of an end are the first cause of purposing that end: nay, no more than Tatnai's propensity (or aversion rather) to build the temple, and to provide sacrifices for the God of heaven, was the cause of Darius's decree, that those things should be done, and that by him. Ezra 5 and 6. chapters. 5. If men be predestina. ted to faith and holiness, (as they are,) Rom. 8: 29: 30. 1 Pet. 1: 2. then they were not seen to be so qualified be. fore that predestination: or if they were, then their elec. tion, as to that particular, would seem impertinent. There can no rational account be given, why men foreseen to be such, should be so solemnly predestinated thereto. Besides, if salvation be the inseparable product of faith and holiness, according to John 5: 24. "He that believeth hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condem. nation," 1 Pet. 1: 9. 66 Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls;" then to ordain to salvation those foreseen to be so qualified, would seem a thing both needless and insignificant: it would look like the sending of men where they would have gone of themselves.