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Contr. No man can groundedly believe the special love of God to him, nor his own election or justification, before he hath (yea before he find in himself) a special love to God. Because he that hath no special love to God, must believe a lie if he believe that he is justified, or that ever God revealed to him that he is elect, or specially beloved of God; and no man hath any evidence or proof at all of his election, and God's special love, till he have this evidence of his special love to God. Till he know this, he cannot know that any other is sincere.

2. They that deny or blaspheme God's common love to fallen man, and his universal pardoning covenant, do their worst to keep men from being moved to the special love of God by his common love; but when they have done their worst, it shall stand as a sure obligation. Is there not reason enough to bind men to love God above all, even as one that yet may be their happiness in his own infinite goodness, and all the revelations of it by Christ, and in his so loving the world, as to give his only Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And in his giving a free pardon of all sin to mankind, and offering life eternal to them, so that none but the final refusers shall lose it, and entreating them to accept it, &c. Is not all this sufficient in reason to move men to the love of God, if the Spirit help them to make use of reason (as he must do what reasons soever are presented to them), unless men think that God doth not oblige them by any kindness they can possibly reject? Or by any thing which many others do partake of?

Yet here note, that by God's common love to man, I do not mean, any which he hath to reprobates, under the consideration of final despisers of his antecedent love; but of that antecedent love itself, which he hath shewed to lost mankind in Christ.

And note also, that I do not deny but that love of God in some men may be true, where their own presumption that God hath elected them, and loved them above others, before they had any proof of it, was an additional motive; but this is man's way, and not God's.

Error 43. That trusting to any thing, save God and Jesus Christ, for our salvation, is sin and damnable.'.

Contr. Confusion cheateth and choketh men's under

standing. In a word, to trust to any thing but God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit, for any of that which is the proper part of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, is sin and damnable. But to trust to any thing or person, for that which is but his own part, is but our duty. And he that prayeth, and readeth, and heareth, and endeavoureth, and looketh to be never the better by them, nor trusteth them for their proper part, will be both heartless and formal in his work.

And I have shewed before, that the Scriptures, the promise, the apostle, the minister, and every Christian and honest man, hath a certain trust due to them for that which is their part, even in order to our salvation. I may trust only to the skill of the physician, and yet trust his apothecary, and the boy that carrieth the medicine for their part.

Error 44. That it is sinful, and contrary to free grace, to look at any thing in ourselves, or our own inherent righteousness, as the evidence of our justification.'

Contr. Then no man can know his justification at all. The Spirit of holiness and adoption in ourselves, is our earnest of salvation, and the witness that we are God's children, and the pledge of God's love; as is proved before. This is God's seal, as God knoweth who are his; so he that will know it himself, must depart from iniquity, when he nameth Christ. If God sanctify none but those whom he justifieth, then may the sanctified know that they are justified. Hath God delivered in Scripture so many signs or characters of the justified in vain?

Object. The witness of the Spirit only can assure us.'

Answ. You know not what the witness of the Spirit is; or else you would know that it is the Spirit making us holy, and possessing us with a filial love of God, and with a desire to please him, and a dependance on him, &c. which is the witness, even by way of an inherent evidence (and helping us to perceive that evidence, and take comfort in it). As a childlike love, and a pleasing obedience, and dependance, with a likeness to the father, is a witness, that is, an evidence which is your child.

Error 45. That it is sinful to persuade wicked men to pray for justification, or any grace, or to do any thing for it; seeing their prayers and doings are abominable to God, and cannot please him.'

Contr. Then it is sinful to persuade a wicked man from his wickedness: praying and obeying, is departing from wickedness. He that prayeth to be sanctified indeed, is repenting and turning from his sin to God. We never exhort wicked men to pray with the tongue, without the desire of the heart. Desire is the soul of prayer, and words are but the body. We persuade them not to dissemble; but as Peter did Simon, repent and pray for forgiveness; Acts viii. And if we may not exhort them to good desires (and to excite and express the best desires they have) we may not exhort them to conversion. "Seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way," &c.; Isa. lv. 6. 10. You see there that praying is a repenting act; and when we exhort them to pray, we exhort them to repent and seek God.

Object. But they have no ability to do it.'

Answ. Thus the devil would excuse sinners and accuse God. Thus you may put by all God's commands, and say, God should not have commanded them to repent, believe, love him, obey him, nor love one another, nor forbear their sins; for they have no ability to do it. But they have their natural faculties, or powers, and they have common grace; and God's way of giving them special grace, is by meeting them in the use of his appointed means; and not by meeting them in an alehouse, or in sinful courses. (However a soul may be met with in his persecuting, and God may be found of them that sought him not; yet that is not his usual, nor his appointed way.) Can any man of reason dream that it is not the duty of a wicked man to use any means for the obtaining of grace, or to be better; nor to do any thing towards his own recovery and salvation? Nature and Scripture teach men as soon as they see their sin and misery, to say, "What must I do to be saved?" As the repenting Jews, and Paul, and the Gaoler did; Acts ii. 37. viii. xvi.

The prayers of a wicked man as wicked, are abominable; that is, both his wicked prayers, and his praying to quiet and strengthen himself in his wickedness, or praying with the tongue without the heart. The prayers which come from a common faith, and common good desires are better than none, but have no promise of justification. But the wicked must be exhorted both to this, and more, even to repent, desire and pray sincerely.

Error 46. It is sinful, and against free grace, to think that any works or actions of our own, are rewardable; or to say, that they are meritorious, though it be nothing but rewardableness that is meant by it.'

Contr. The Papists have so much abused the word merit, by many dangerous opinions about it, that it is now become more unmeet to be used by us, than it was in ancient times, when the doctors and churches (even Austin himself) did commonly use it. But if nothing be meant by it, but rewardableness, or the relation of a duty to the reward as freely promised by God (as many Papists themselves understand it, and the ancient fathers generally did), he that will charge a man with error in doctrine for the use of an inconvenient word, is uncharitable and perverse; especially when it is other men's abuse, which hath done most to make it inconvenient. The merit of the cause is a common phrase among all lawyers, when there is commutative meriting intended. I have fully shewed in my Confession, that the Scripture frequently useth the word worthy, which is the same or full as much and a subject may be said to merit protection of his prince; and a scholar to merit praise of his master, and a child to deserve love and respect from his parents, and all this in no respect to commutative justice, wherein the rewarder is supposed to be a gainer at all; but only in governing distributive justice, which giveth every one that which (by gift or any way) is his due. And that every good man, and every good action, deserveth praise, that is, to be esteemed such as it is. And that there is also a comparative merit, and a not-meriting evil: as a believer may be said not to deserve damnation by the covenant of grace, but only by (or according to) the law of nature or works.

But to pass from the word merit (which I had rather were quite disused, because the danger is greater than the benefit) the thing signified thus by it, is past all dispute, viz. that whatever duty God hath promised a reward to, that duty or work is rewardable according to the tenor of that promise and they that deny this, deny God's laws, and government, and judgment, and his covenant of grace, and leave not themselves one promise for faith to rest upon : so, certainly would all these persons be damned, if God in

mercy did not keep them from digesting their own errors, and bringing them into practice.

Error 47. God is pleased with us only for the righteousness of Christ, and not for any thing in ourselves.'

Contr. This is sufficiently answered before. He blasphemeth God, who thinketh that he is no better pleased with holiness than with wickedness; with well doing, than with ill doing. They that are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. viii. 6, 7.); but the spiritual and obedient may. Without faith it is impossible to please him, because unbelievers think not that he is a Rewarder, and therefore will not seek his reward aright: but they that will please him, must believe that "he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him;" Heb. xi. 6. They forget not to do good and distribute, because with such sacrifices God is well pleased; Heb. xiii. And in a word, it is the work of all their lives to labour, that whether living or dying they may be accepted of him, (2 Cor. v. 8, 9.) and to be such, and to do those things as are pleasing in his sight. Nay, I will add, that as the glory of God, that is, the glorious demonstration or appearance of himself in his works, is materially the ultimate end of man; so the pleasing of himself in this his glory shining in his image and works, is the very ‘apex,' or highest formal notion of this ultimate end of God and of man, as far as is within our reach.

No man's works please God out of Christ, both because they are unsound and bad in the spring and end, and because their faultiness is not pardoned. But in Christ, the persons and duties of the godly are pleasing to God, because they have his image, and are sincerely good, and because their former sins, and present imperfections are forgiven for the sake of Christ (who never reconciled God to wickedness).

Error 48. It is mercenary to work for a reward, and legal to set men on doing for salvation.'

Contr. It is legal or foolish to think of working for any reward, by such meritorious works, as make the reward to be not of grace, but of debt; Rom. iv. 4. But he that maketh God himself, and his everlasting love to be his reward, and trusteth in Christ the only reconciler, as knowing his guilt and enmity by sin; and laboureth for the food