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

which perisheth not, but endureth to everlasting life; and layeth up a treasure in heaven, and maketh himself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, and layeth up a good foundation for the time to come, laying hold upon eternal life, and striveth to enter in at the strait gate, and fighteth a good fight, and finisheth his course for the crown of righteousness, and suffereth persecution for a reward in heaven, and prayeth in secret that God may reward him, and always aboundeth in the work of the Lord, because his labour is not in vain in the Lord, and endureth to the end, that he may be saved, and is faithful to the death, and overcometh, that he may receive the crown of life; this man taketh God's way, and the only way to heaven; and they that thas seek not the reward (being at the use of reason) are never like to have it.

Error 49. It is not lawful for the justified to pray for the pardon of any penalties, but temporal.'

Contr. The ground of this is before overthrown.

Error 50. 'It is not lawful to pray twice for the pardon of the same sin; because it implieth unbelief, as if it were not pardoned already.'

Contr. It is a duty to pray oft and continuedly for the pardon of former sins: 1. Because pardon once granted must be continued; and therefore the continuance must be prayed: If you say, 'It is certain to be continued,' I answer, then it is certain that you will continue to pray for it (and to live a holy life. 2. Because the evils deserved, are such as we are not perfectly delivered from, and are in danger of more daily. And therefore we must pray for daily executive pardon, that is, impunity; and that God will give us more of his Spirit, and save us from the fruit of former sin; because our right to future impunity is given before all the impunity itself. 3. And the complete justification from all past sins, is yet to come at the day of judgment. And all this, (besides that some that have pardon, know it not) may and must be daily prayed for.

Error 51. The justified must not pray again for the pardon of the sins before conversion.'

Contr. What was last said confuteth this.

Error 52. No man at all may pray for pardon, but only for assurance: for the sins of the elect are all pardoned before they were born; and the non-elect have no satisfaction