can require no duty of us, we do not sin in omitting it: and where there is no sin, there can be no wrath. (As to what may be urged by the unhumbled soul against the putting of our stock in Adam's hand, the righteousness of that dispensation was cleared before.) But, moreover, the unrenewed man is daily throwing away the very remains of natural abilities; that light and strength which are to be found amongst the ruins of mankind. Nay, farther, he will not believe his own utter inability to help himself; so that out of his own mouth he will be condemned. Even those who make their natural impotency to good a cover to their sloth, do, with others, delay the work of turning to God from time to time; under convictions, make large promises of reformation, which afterwards they never regard; and delay their repentance to a death-bed, as if they could help themselves in a moment; which speaks them to be far from a due sense of their natural inability, whatever they pretend.

Now, if God can require of men the duty they are not able to do, he can, in justice, punish them for their not doing it, notwithstanding their inability. If he have power to exact the debt of obedience, he has also power to cast the insolvent debtor into his prison, for not paying it. Further, though unregenerate men have no gracious abilities, yet they want no natural abilities, which, nevertheless, they will not improve. There are many things they can do, which they do not; they will not do them: and therefore their damnation will be just. Nay, all their inability to good is voluntary; they will not come to Christ, John v. 40. They will not repent, they will die, Ezek. xviii. 51. So they will be justly condemned, because they will not turn to God, nor come to Christ; but love their chains better than their liberty, and darkness rather than light, John iii. 19.

Object. (2.) Why do you then preach Christ to us; call us to come to him; to believe, repent, and use the means of salvation? Ans. Because it is your duty so to do. It is your duty to accept of Christ as he is offered in the Gospel; to repent of your sins, and to be holy in all manner of conversation: these things are commanded you of God; and his command, not your ability, is the measure of your duty. Moreover, these calls and exhortations, are the means that God is pleased to make use of, for converting his elect, and working grace in their hearts: to them, "faith cometh by hearing," Rom. x. 17, while they are as unable to help themselves as the rest of mankind are. Upon very good grounds may we, at the command of God, "who raiseth the dead," go to their graves,

and cry in his name, "Awake thou that sleepest; and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light," Eph. v. 14. And seeing the elect are not to be known and distinguished from others, before conversion: as the sun shines on the blind man's face, and the rain falls on the rocks as well as on the fruitful plains; so we preach Christ to all, and shoot the arrow at a venture, which God himself directs as he sees meet. Moreover, these calls and exhortations are not altogether in vain, even to those that are not converted by them. Such persons may be convinced, though they be not converted: although they be not sanctified by these means, yet they may be restrained by them, from running into that excess of wickedness, which otherwise they would arrive at. The means of grace serve, as it were, to embalm many dead souls which are never quickened by them; though they do not restore them to life, yet they keep them from smelling so rank as otherwise they would do. Finally, though ye cannot recover yourselves, nor take hold of the saving help offered to you in the Gospel; yet, even by the power of nature, ye may use the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates the benefits of redemption to ruined sinners, who are utterly unable to recover themselves out of the state of sin and wrath. Ye may, and can, if you please, do many things that would set you in a fair way for help from the Lord Jesus Christ. Ye may go so far on, as to be not far from the kingdom of God, as the discreet Scribe had done, Mark xii. 34, though (it would seem) he was destitute of supernatural abilities. Though ye cannot cure yourselves, yet ye may come to the pool, where many such diseased persons as ye are, have been cured: though ye have none to put you into it, yet ye may lie at the side of it; and "who knows but the Lord may return, and leave a blessing behind him," as in the case of the impotent man, recorded, John v. 5-8. I hope Satan does not chain you to your houses, nor stake you down in your fields on the Lord's day; but ye are at liberty, and can wait at the posts of wisdom's door, if ye will. And when ye come thither, he doth not beat drums at your ears, that ye cannot hear what is said: there is no force upon you, obliging you to apply all you hear to others; ye may apply to yourselves what belongs to your state and condition: and when you go home, you are not fettered in your houses, where perhaps no religious discourse is to be heard; but ye may retire to some separate place, where ye can meditate, and pose your conscience with pertinent questions, upon what ye have heard. Ye are not possessed with

a dumb devil, that ye cannot get your mouths opened in prayer to God. Ye are not so driven out of your beds to your worldly business, and from your worldly business to your beds again; but ye might, if ye would, bestow some prayers to God upon the case of your perishing souls. Ye may examine yourselves as to the state of your souls, in a solemn manner, as in the presence of God; ye may discern that ye have no grace, and that ye are lost and undone without it; and ye may cry unto God for it. These things are within the compass of natural abilities, and may be practised where there is no grace. aggravate your guilt, that you will not be at so much pains about the state and case of your precious souls. And if ye do not what ye can do, ye will be condemned not only for your want of grace, but for your despising of it.

It must

Object. (3.) But all this is needless, seeing we are utterly unable to keep ourselves out of the state of sin and wrath. Ans. Give no place to that delusion, which puts asunder what God hath joined, namely, the use of means, and a sense of your own impotency. If ever the Spirit of God graciously influence your souls, ye will become thoroughly sensible of your absolute inability, and yet enter upon a vigorous use of means. Ye will do for yourselves, as if ye were to do all; and yet overlook all ye do as if ye had done nothing. Will ye do nothing for yourselves, because ye cannot do all? Lay down no such impious conclusion against your own souls. Do what you can; and it may be, while ye are doing what ye can for yourselves, God will do for you what ye cannot. "Understandest thou what thou readest?" said Philip to the Eunuch: "How can I, said he, except some man should guide me?" Acts viii. 30, 31. He could not understand the Scripture he read; yet he could read it: he did what he could, he read: and while he was reading, God sent him an interpreter. The Israelites were in a great strait at the red sea: and how could they help themselves, when upon the one hand were mountains, and on the other the enemy's garrison: when Pharaoh and his host were behind them, and the red sea before them? What could they do? "Speak unto the children of Israel," saith the Lord to Moses, "that they go forward," Exod. xiv. 15. For what end should they go forward? Can they make a passage to themselves through the sea? No: but let them go forward, saith the Lord: though they cannot turn sea to dry land, yet they can go forward to the shore: and so they did. And when they did what they could, God did for them what they could not do.

Quest. Has God promised to convert and save them, who in

the use of means, do what they can towards their own relief? Ans. We may not speak wickedly for God; natural men being strangers to the covenant of promise, Eph. ii. 12, have no such promise made to them. Nevertheless they do not act rationally unless they exert the powers they have and do what they can. For, (1.) It is possible this course may succeed with them. If ye do what ye can, it may be, God will do for you what you cannot do for yourselves. This is sufficient to determine a man, in a matter of the utmost importance, such as this is, Acts viii. 22, "Pray God if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee." Joel ii. 14, "Who knoweth if he will return?" If success may be, the trial should be. If, in a wreck at sea, all the sailors and passengers had betaken themselves each to a broken board for safety, and one of them should see all the rest perish, notwithstanding their utmost endeavours to save themselves: yet the very possibility of escaping by that means, would determine that one still to do his best with his board. Why then do ye not reason with yourselves, as the four lepers did, who sat at the gates of Samaria, 2 Kings vii. 3, 4. Why do ye not say, "If we sit still, not doing what we can, we die: let us put it to a trial, if we be saved, we shall live; if not, we shall but die." (2.) It is probable this course may succeed. God is good and merciful: he loves to surprise men with his grace, and is often "found of them that sought him not," Isa. lxv. 1. If ye do this, ye are so far in the road of your duty; and ye are using the means which the Lord is wont to bless for men's spiritual recovery: ye lay yourselves in the way of the great Physician; and so it is probable ye may be healed. Lydia went, with others, to the place where prayer was wont to be made; and the Lord opened her heart," Acts xvi. 13, 14. Ye plough and sow, though nobody can tell you for certain that ye will get so much as your seed again: ye use means for the recovery of your health, though ye are not sure they will succeed. In those cases, probability determines you; and why not in this also? Importunity, we see, does very much with men; therefore pray, meditate, desire help of God; be much at the throne of grace, supplicating for grace, and do not faint. Though God regard not you, who in your present state, are but one mass of sin, universally depraved and vitiated in all the powers of your soul, yet he may regard his own ordinance. Though he regards not your prayers, your meditations, &c. yet he may regard prayer, meditation, and the like means of his own appointment, and so bless them to you.

Wherefore, if ye will not do what ye can, ye are not only dead, but you declare yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

To conclude, let the saints admire the freedom and power of grace, which came to them in their helpless condition, made their chains fall off, the iron gate to open to them; raised the fallen creatures, and brought them out of the state of sin and wrath, wherein they would have lain and perished, had they not been mercifully visited. Let the natural man be sensible of his utter inability to recover himself. Know thou art without strength; and canst not come to Christ, till thou be drawn. Thou art lost, and canst not help thyself. This may shake the foundation of thy hopes, who never sawest thy absolute need of Christ and his grace; but thinkest to shift for thyself, by thy civility, morality, drowsy wishes, and duties; and by a faith and repentance, which have sprung up out of thy natural powers, without the power and efficacy of the grace of Christ. O be convinced of thy absolute need of Christ, and his overcoming grace; believe thy utter inability to recover thyself: that so thou mayest be humbled, shaken out of thy self-confidence, and lie down in dust and ashes, groaning out thy miserable case before the Lord. A kindly sense of thy natural impotency, the impotency of depraved human nature, would be a step towards a delivery.

Thus far of MAN'S NATURAL STATE, the State of Entire Depravation.