Influences of the Life of Grace, Part 1 · Chapter 4
CHAP. IV.
The neceſſity of influences of Grace. Of the Soveraignty of God in diſpenſing influences.
IT is eaſie to determine that there is a ſort of neceſſity of the Lords beſtowing influences upon all natural cauſes, of this before.
In ſo far as willing and nilling are acts of ſecond cauſes in the ſame ſphere with natural cauſes; there ſeems to be no more reaſon for denying influences to nilling and willing ſimply,Neceſſity of influences. yea or for literal hearing and praying, then for plowing and ſowing, except that here God acts in a dreadful way of Juſtice, toward Pharaoh and other reprobates, in leaving them to the actings of their own heart; only it may be ſaid, that God finding his child under deadneſs, and acting in a dead and literal way, as he hath bowels of compaſſion toward his choſen, under the evil of ſin, that are ready to be drowned, he joynes his help of influences, ſeeing his own goe about duties with wreſtling and pain, ſince he knows ſome one way or other they muſt be over the water, and helped, otherwiſe they cannot ſtir.
2. As there are ſome ſaving graces from the Mediator, ſo muſt there be ſome mediatory influences beſtowed covenant wayes upon the choſen of God. But 1. Free goodneſs, and not natural neceſſity, made the world; and that ſame freedome intervenes, in continuing, being and acting in creatures, which act by nature. Fire caſteth heat, the Sun light and influences, the Sea ebeth and floweth by nature; yet there muſt alſo be a free new commiſſion ſealed from eternity, to every acting of nature; he commandeth the Sun, and it riſeth not; forbideth the fire to caſt out heat, and it obeyeth, Job 9. 7. Heb. 11. 34. Dan. 3. 27. and it is an obliging and an indearing of the heart to God, Reaſons of renewed influences.to come dayly under new debt, and multiplied free gifts, and it renews acts of love in us, as freſh actings of ſalvation flow: whether it be new deliverances, Pſal. 18. 1, 2, 6, 7. Pſal. 116. 1, 2, 3, 4. or new acts of keeping faith from drying up in the fire, 1 Pet. 1. 3, 4. ſo as you being tried as gold, verſe 8. y… love having not ſeen him. 2. It extracts acts of praying, ſenſe of ſpiritual ſlowneſſe ſeems to pray, Cant. 1. 4. Draw me, we will run; and ſenſe of ſpiritual dulneſſe, Pſal. 119. 33. Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy ſtatutes. 3. Hence comes humble relying upon God, when faith is put to believe that at every ſtirring of the members, and at every lifting of the foot, for a new ſtep, the head muſt ſtir in heaven, and let down new influences of life; and the bottles of Heaven, and well of life, muſt let down new flowings of rain, every moment, upon the withered garden; if as much rain fell in one day, as would ſuffice the earth for ſeven years, and a man might eat ſo much at one meal, as he ſhould neither be hungry nor thirſty for five years, there ſhould not be ſuch dayly dependance upon new influences for rain and dew dayly, and for our dayly bread this day. We can but (4.) hence, but believe the infinite wiſedome of the Lord, who well knows how to husband and ſteward his ſhowres; for in the man Chriſt they are continual. John 8. 29. He that ſent me is with me, the Father hath not left me alone, foreign nor diſmiſſed me, for I do always foreign the thing that pleaſe him: When ever we do what is diſpleaſing to God, the Father of Chriſt leaves us, out of the depth of his ſoveraignty of diſpenſing influences. Chriſt was never ſo morally deſerted.The firſt Adam might want influences, the ſecond cannot.
1. As the Lord would have a falling law-Adam, to whom he denied influences, that nature might be nature; ſo he alſo would have a ſtanding and never ſinning-Adam, that grace might appear to be grace. 2. Upon ſuppoſition that the ſecond Adam is God man, it was impoſſible but the man Chriſt, in all his actions moral ſhould want influences, or ever ſin, or be left alone of the Father, but he muſt always do the thing that pleaſeth the Father; nor is there any murmuring to be againſt the diſpenſation of deepeſt wiſdom, why we have not at our pleaſure influences of grace, that we ſhould never ſin, as the man Chriſt never ſinned. 3. Say we could ſee no reaſon, the thing is notire; the Lord acts in the (firſt) elect Angels, that they never ſin; he denied in the firſt fall influences to the reprobate Angels; and ſince the Lord hath condemned them, and tied them with chains of darkneſſe, that their whole actions, except the acts of intellectual being and living, and the acts of knowing, believing, deſiring, fearing, &c. in the ſubſtance of the act, ſhould be only moral, and only ſin in all the ſubſtantial circumſtances,Satans actions always deſtitute of influences. John 8. 44. Satan was a man-ſlayer foreign and ſtood not in the truth, being created in the firſt truth, adhering to God, 1 John 3. 8. the Divel ſinned from the beginning: hence he is called 1 Peter 5. foreign the contrary party in law; and foreign goes about like a roaring Lion, ſeeking whom he may drink over. So that though there be in men actions of the phanſie, as to claw the head, rub the beard, actions of the vegetative life, to grow to age, to decline in old age; ſeneſcere, pubeſcere, adoleſcere, that are under no Law, and ſo no ſins; yet all Satans actions are moral, theſe excepted of which we ſpoke, and influences to moral actions, granted to reprobate men, as to gives alms, to go and hear the word, viſit the ſick, and impriſoned, are denied to Satan. Some men are alſo 2. Reprobate to good works, Tit. 1. 16. and cannot believe: and here is ſoveraignty that God works in ſome veſſels of mercy to will and to do, not in others. 3. As touching the meaſure of grace, and the degrees of ſaving influences, the Lord walketh in a latitude of freedome, all men have not alike meaſure of ſaving grace and faith. 4. His freedome ſhines in the work of converſion: John Baptiſt is filled with the holy Ghoſt from the womb, Luke 1. 15. but (2.) the woman of Samaria, Matthew, Zachaeus, Magdalen, Abraham, Saul, go on in a wretched ſtate of nature, for ſome conſiderable tract of years, and then are viſited with influences of life; and (3.) the Thief that was crucified with Chriſt upon the Croſs, in his outgoing is converted, and not till then;How God withdraws inf…uences in particular acts hic & nunc, and yet hath promiſed to beſtow influences on the regenerate by promiſe. except the ſoveraign liberty of God ſilence us, no other reaſon can occur of theſe things to mans underſtanding. (4.) In the Saints this liberty is clear; fewer falls in Joſeph then in David; and ſo he muſt be nearer to dayly influences to the one, then the other. So the Lord left Hezekiah to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart, 2 Chron. 32. 31. Thus much Noah his drunkenneſſe, Lot his inceſt, David his adultery and murdering of Ʋriah, Peter his denying of Chriſt and his Judaizing, Gal. 2. proclame to us, that though Saints are to believe perſeverance, and ſo that in Chriſt, there ſhall be furniſhed to them outlettings of life from the fountain to bring them to glory, as touching the habitual tract of their journey to Heaven; yet hath the Lord reſerved a liberty hic & nunc, to let out and withdraw influences; and the faith of believers is to reſt upon the promiſe upon this condition, that they fret not at his diſpenſation, who by ſad falls on Ice and ſlidery way muſt correct our ſinful raſhneſs, and teach children godly warineſs; nor is there any thing in our folly to be ſeen but his wiſdome. (5.) And ſinful ſlips in us, and freedome of withdrawing in the Lord, bring us to be the engaged debtors of grace;The Lord acts on us by his influences, but we act not on him. and this ſets the higher price upon our Advocate's interceſſion; when we ſin 1 Joh. 2. 1, 2. his withdrawings uſher the way to his own outlettings of grace; he knows how to dry us up, that we may, being withered, come under the debt of new watering; more of this hereafter.
There is here no creating of clouds or rain, by King or Husbandman, or Hoſts of men; the Husbandmans faith and prayer in extreme drought may fetch rain: but we have, in theſe actings in which God muſt joyn his gracious influence, no real influence upon the Lord's influences; the Roſe acts not upon the Sun by influences, but the Sun acts upon the Roſe, though we may pray for influences of grace.
Nor can tears and wreſtling extort influences, when the Lord is upon a… act of declaring his ſoveraignty in trying us,How we cannot pray away deſertion and the trying withdrawings, & yet are we to pray ſubmiſſively for the removal of deſertion, and are to pray againſt withdrawings. there is praying, and yet heavineſs and dropping away of ſoul, bids on, and the Petitioner remains like a bottle on the ſmoak; the Glaſs ſet muſt run out ſo many hours; ere the Sea flow again, the Sea-man weeps and prays, but the ſtorm continues and the wind hears him not, and he that creates the wind ſuſpends his acting. God hath not ſaid that the husband-man may pray away Winter, while the ſeaſon be over; nor that the Traveller, when the Sun is ſet and darkneſs come, ſhould pray away the night, while the hours be over; So here God hath fixed a time for a winter ſeaſon of heavineſs and trying deadneſs. The Lord's mind is to pray for the right melting of the metal, and not for the quenching and removing of the fire, he muſt do his work; its wiſdom to know who orders our prayers, and to pray for ſomething about his withdrawing, and not for the removal of the withdrawing it ſelf; Paul three times prays 2 Cor. 12. for the removal of the Meſſenger of Satan: But prayer ſtirs not right then in all points; he ſhould have prayed for ſufficiency of grace: our gracious Lord laying aſide the droſs of our prayer, hears us not in granting what we ſuit, but what we ought to ſuit in prayer, and in granting what we ſuit not formally, but what the Spirit ſuits internally in us; The man in a Feaver cries for a Drink, the Phyſitian forbids to give him drink, and yet gives to quench the thirſt ſome other thing then drink; ſo the ſick mans ſuit is profitably heard. Yet my meaning is not, that the Lord cannot, or will not at all take off an arreſtment of diſertion, at the praying of his children, the Lord cannot repeal that, Pſal. 50. 15. Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou ſhalt glorifie me; therefore he repeals it not under withdrawings, which are amongſt the greateſt of ſuch troubles as put us to call upon God.
2. Chriſt under the Lord's withdrawings, in point of comfort and enjoyment of the felt favour of God prayed and was heard, Heb. 5. 7. Matth. 26. 38, 39. Luke 22. 42, 43. therefore by the like he doth hear us in ſuch a caſe; I fetch the Argument a proportion; for Chriſt in whom Satan finds nothing, is not capable of the withdrawings of God in point of duty. If any ſay it was Chriſt's duty always to rejoyce in God,
I anſwer, It was an affirmative Precept which did not oblige the man Chriſt actually in every moment of time; and in radice it did, habitu it did, habitually it did oblige him; for that rejoyce evermore, obligeth not ever to actual rejoycing, but to a ſavory habit of rejoycing; nor did that (pray continually) oblige the man Chriſt to pray actually and to ſpeak to God, when he was preaching and ſpeaking to men, at one time; nor was actually rejoycing in God phyſically conſiſtent with actual ſorrow in ſuffering.
3. The praying to be led of God in his way, not to be led into temptation muſt include a ſuit that God would ſend influences, and not forſake us in the way of his obedience under our defections: therefore there is need of a ſpecial ſubmiſſion and a reſerve of time to ſail when his flowings ſet the ſoul a float. Hence may a child of God ſubmit to his deep ſoveraignty in withdrawings, and ſtoop humbly to the Lord's holy decree, (his holy will be done upon clay) and yet alſo deſire preſently the removal of ſinful deadneſs, and pray againſt our ſinful omiſſion which neceſſarily follows upon the Lord's withdrawing, and we are to nill and hate ſinning, which reſults from the withdrawing; therefore both pray and forget that ye have prayed, and adore ſoveraignty. Pray under withdrawing for influences, yet truſt not on the act of praying; and though he ſtill withdraw, pray, but without fainting under, and fretting againſt ſoveraignty.
The habit being of the nature of a power cannot actuate itſelf, nor can we actuate and make uſe of the power of grace; now as the God of nature is he in whom we live, and move, and ſo we are acted by him in our natural ſtirrings; ſo in Chriſt Redeemer Emanuel in whom is the fulneſs and fountain of grace we live ſpiritually. Neither have we the uſe and exerciſe of our grace in our own hand, nor can we believe when we will, as a Muſitian can ſing when he will.