hope to be justified by those little arrests of his sin, and his beginnings to leave it upon his death-bed, and his sorrow for it, than when he cannot obtain the righteousness of God, or the holiness of the Gospel. It was good counsel that was given by a wise heathen. Dimidium facti, qui cœpit, habet; sapere aude; It is good for a man to begin: the clown that stands by a river-side expecting till all the water be run away, may stay long enough before he gets to the other side.'-He that wil not begin to live well till he hath answered all objections, and hath no lusts to serve, and no more appetites to please,-shall never arrive at happiness in the other world. Be wise, and begin betimes. SECTION V. Consideration of the Objections against the former Doctrine. 51. I. But why may not all this be done in an instant by the grace of God? Cannot he infuse into us the habits of all the graces evangelical ? Faith cannot be obtained by natural means, and if it be procured by supernatural, the Spirit of God is not retarded by the measures of an enemy, and the dull methods of natural opposition. "Nescit tarda molimina Spiritus Sancti gratia." Without the divine grace we cannot work any thing of the righteousness of God; but if he gives us his grace, does not he make us chaste and patient, humble and devout, and all in an instant? For thus the main question seems to be confessed and granted, that a habit is not remitted but by the introduction of the contrary: but when you consider what you handle, it is a cloud and nothing else; for this admission of the necessity of a habit, enjoins no more labour nor care, it requires no more time, it introduces no active fears, and infers no particular caution, and implies the doing of no more than to the remission of a single act of one sin. 52. To this I answer, that the grace of God is a superna• Hor. Ep. i. 2. 40. tural principle, and gives new aptness and inclinations, powers and possibilities, it invites and teaches, it supplies us with arguments and answers objections, it brings us into artificial necessities, and inclines us sweetly: and this is the semen Dei,' spoken of by St. John, the seed of God,' thrown into the furrows of our hearts, springing up (unless we choke it) to life eternal. By these assistances we being helped can do our duty, and we can expel the habits of vice, and get the habits of virtue: but as we cannot do God's work without God's grace; so God's grace does not do our work without us. For grace being but the beginnings of a new nature in us, gives nothing but powers and inclinations. "The Spirit helpeth our infirmities;" so St. Paul explicates this mystery. And therefore when he had said, "By the grace of God I am what I am;" that is, all is owing to his grace: he also adds, "I have laboured more than they all, yet not I;" that is, not I alone; "sed gratia Dei mecum ;"" the grace God that is with me."--For the grace of God stands at the door and knocks; but we must attend to his voice, and open the door, and then he will enter and sup with us, and we shall be with him.' The grace of God is like a graff put into a stock of another nature; it makes use of the faculties aad juice of the stock and natural roots, but converts all into its own nature. But, of 53. II. We may as well say there can be a habit born with us, as infused into us. For as a natural habit supposes a frequency of action by him who hath natural abilities; so does an infused habit (if there were any such); it is a result and consequent of a frequent doing the works of the Spirit. So that to say, that God, in an instant, infuses into us a habit [of charity, &c.] is to say that he hath in an instant infused into us to have done the acts of that grace frequently. For it is certain by experience, that the frequent doing the actions of any 'grace, increases the grace, and yet the grace or aids of God's Spirit are as necessary for the growth, as for the beginnings of grace. We cannot either will or do without his help; he worketh both in us, that is, we by his help alone But then we are are enabled to do things above our nature. the persons enabled; and therefore we do these works as we do others, not by the same powers, but in the same manner; P Rom. viii. 26. 54. When God raises a cripple from his couch, and gives him strength to move, though the aid be supernatural, yet the motion is after the manner of nature. And it is evident in the matter of faith, which though it be the gift of God, yet it is seated in the understanding, which operates by way of discourse, and not by intuition: the believer understands as a man, not as an angel; and when Christ by miracle restored a blind eye, still that eye did see by reception, or else by emission of species, just so as eyes that did see naturally. So it is in habits. For it is a contradiction to say, that a perfect habit is infused in an instant: for if a habit were infused, it must be infused as a habit is acquired; for else it is not a habit. As if a motion should be infused, it must still be successive as well as if it were natural. 55. But this device of infused habits, is a fancy without ground, and without sense, without authority, or any just grounds or confidence, and it hath in it very bad effects. For it destroys all necessity of our care and labour in the ways of godliness, all cautions of a holy life; it is apt to minister pretences and excuses for a perpetually wicked life till the last of our days, making men to trust to a late repentance; it puts men upon vain confidences, and makes them rely for salvation upon dreams and empty notions; it destroys all the duty of man, and cuts off all intercourse of obedience and reward. But it is sufficient, that there is no ground for it in Scripture, nor in antiquity, nor in right reason: but it is infinitely destructive of all that wise conduct of souls, by which God would glorify himself by the means of a free obedience; and it is infinitely confuted by all those Scriptures, which require our cooperation with the assistances of God's Holy Spirit. For all the helps that the Spirit of grace ministers to us, are far from doing our work for us, that it only enables us to do it for ourselves, and makes it reasonable that God should therefore exact it of us, because we have no excuse, and cannot plead disability. To which purpose that discourse of St. Paul is highly convincing and demonstrative; "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure"," TÈρ TйS Eudoxías, according to our desire: so it is better read; that is, q Habitus infusi infunduntur per modum acquisitorum Regul. Scholast. r Phil. ii. 12, 13. 6 6 fear not at all, but xaтegyálεode, thoroughly do your duty';" for according as you desire and pray, God will be present to you with his grace, to bear you through all your labours and temptations. And therefore our conversion, and the work. ing our salvation,' are sometimes ascribed to God, sometimes to ment; to God as the prime and indeficient cause, to man ws ouvégy, as to the fellow-worker with God;' it is the expression of St. Paul. The Scripture mentions no other effect of God's grace, but such as I have now described. But that grace should do all our work alone, and in an instant, that which costs the saints so much labour, and fierce contentions, so much sorrow and trouble, so many prayers and tears, so much watchfulness and caution, so much fear and trembling, so much patience and long-suffering, so much toleration and contradiction, and all this under the conduct of the Spirit, in the midst of all the greatest helps of grace, and the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit of God; that all this - labour and danger should be spared to a vile person, who hath grieved and extinguished God's Holy Spirit, and a way contrived for him that he should enjoy the pleasures of this world, and the glories of the next, is such a device, as, if it had any ground or colourable pretence for it, would, without the miracles of another grace, destroy all piety from the face of the earth. And in earnest, it seems to me a strange thing, that the doctors of the church of Rome should be so loose and remiss in this article, when they are so fierce in another that takes from such persons all manner of excuse. It is, I say, very strange, that it should be so possible, and yet withal so unnecessary, to keep the commandments. 56. Obj. 2. But if a single act of contrition cannot procure pardon of sins that are habitual, then a wicked man, that returns not till it be too late to root out vicious habits, must despair of salvation. I answer, that such a man should do well to ask his physician, whether it be possible for him to escape that sickness ? If his physician say it is, then the man need not despair; for if he return to life and health, it will not be too late for him by the grace of God to recover in his soul. But if his physician say he cannot recover; first let the physician be reproved for making his patient to S Magis operamini. Syrus. Augescite in opere. Arabs. t 1 Cor. v. 7, 8. 2 Tim. ii. 21. Jam. iv. 8. Eph. iv. 22-24. Col. iii. 9, 10, despair. I am sure he hath less reason to say he cannot live, than there is to say, such a person hath no promise that he shall be saved without performing the condition. But the physician, if he be a wise man, will say, so far as he understands by the rules of his art, this man cannot recover; but some secret causes of things there are, or may be, by which the event may be better than the most reasonable predictions of his art. The same answer I desire may be taken in the question of his soul. Concerning which the curate is to preach the rules and measures of God, but not to give a resolution concerning the secret and final sentence. 2. The case of the five foolish virgins, if we may construe it as it is expressed, gives a sad account to such persons: and unless that part of the parable be insignificant, which expresses their sorrow, their diligence, their desire, their begging of oil, their going out to buy oil before the Bridegroom came, but after it was noised that he was coming, and the insuffi ciency of all this, we may too certainly conclude, that much more than a single act of contrition, and a moral revocation, that is, a sorrow and a nolition of the past sins, may be done upon our death-bed without effect, without a being accepted to pardon and salvation. 3. When things are come to that sad state, let the man hope as much as he can; God forbid that I should be author to him to despair. The purpose of this discourse is, that men in health should not put things to that desperate condition, or make their hopes so little and afflicted, that it may be disputed whether they be alive or no. 4. But this objection is nothing but à temptation and a snare; a device to make me confess that the former arguments (for fear men should despair) ought to be answered, and are not perfectly, convincing. I intended them only for institution and instruction, not to confute any person or any thing, but to condemn sin, and to rescue men from danger. But truly, I do think they are rightly concluding (as moral propositions are capable); and if the consequent of them be, that dying persons after a vicious life cannot hope, ordinarily, for pardon, I am truly sorrowful that any man should fall into that sad state of things; as I am really afflicted and sorrowful that any man should live vilely, or perish miserably but then it ought not to be imputed to this doctrine, that it makes men despair, for the purpose and proper con |