ble Decree, I shall speak no more of it but this, That they who first broacht it, and therefore were moft fond of it, found it clogg'd with so many ill confequences, fo reflecting upon the Deity, and of fuch ill influence upon Manners, that tho' they were accounted the most pertinacious Sect of Men in the World, they have left it honeftly retracted. Chryfippus difavows it in Cicero and Gellius; and the more modern Stoicks build all their Morals upon a clear contrary foundation: for Τὰ ἐφ ̓ ἡμῶν ὅτι φύσει ἐλέυ Steg is their first Principle; that is, All mens internal Actions are naturally free. As for the Malignity of Matter, ic was a Notion more tolerable among the Heathens, because their errours about the Eternity and original Qualities of Matter were perhaps Invincible: but for Chriftians to impute the same effects to the Corruption of our Nature by the Fall, as tho' we had thereby contracted fuch a Complexional Neceffity of finning, as neither neither Precept nor Caution, nor all the remedies that God has provided, could refcue us from that Neceffity; this is a great Calumny to Nature, and affront to God's Goodness, and a meer crude Apology of fuch as were first resolved for a lazy indulgence to Vice. And yet this pretence is not unusual; it is not unusual to hear men confefs their Sins in fuch a subtle form, as tho' they were drawing Schemes of Sophiftry against the Day of Judgment. "I must not deny my Sins: (fays the Man) The righteous man "falls seven times a day; We dwell " in a Body of Sin; Our first Parent " ་ eat of the forbidden fruit, and fo de"rived a Curfe upon his unhappy Poste"rity; Homo fum, I am a Son of Adam, "I need fay no more to speak my guilt. And now what means fuch a Confeffion as this, but that the Man is willing to discharge the burthen of his Confcience upon something out of his own power; and to infinuate that it is not will and choice, choice, but force of conftitution that makes us Sinners; that we are born with fuch tainted Principles; flesh so ftubborn, and appetites fo impetuous, that neither Rule, nor Inftitution, nor Endeavour, nor Grace it felf can regulate them; and that thereupon, as Adam urged against God for the firft Sin committed, The Woman that thou gavest me beguiled me, and I did eat, fo his Pofterity might urge for all that have been committed fince, The Nature that thou allotted us has betrayed us, and we are finners? Thus will men dawb with untempered mortar, (in the Prophet's Allegory) though the wall shall be caft down, and they in the midst of it. For to affign the true measure of Nature in reference to Defect, I lay down this for the Fundamental Truth, That whatsoever there is either of impotence or pofitive malignity in our Natures, it is only fuch as is confiftent both with the Purity and Mercy of God: aud therefore we may certain ly conclude, that it cannot be so much as fhall either adminifter matter of excufe to those that will be bad, or argu ment of despair to those that defire to be good. We are born with propenfions to Vice, and appetites prone to close with tempting Evils; but these are so far from being actually evil themselves, that they are the very life of Vertue, and foundation of Reward. 'Tis true, they create difficulties in Vertue, and make the way rugged; but then God is pleased to confider these difficulties indulgently; and for that very reason he admits Man to terms of repentance and reconciliation: whereas the Angels, who were made of a purer Nature, and lefs obnoxious to temptation, were allowed no fuch remedy. But moreover these difficulties which our infirmity creates, are far from being infuperable; we know our armour, and we are commanded to fight, and we are assured of Victory : Whatsoever of strength we have not in Our our felves, we know where to have fupplied; and whatsoever those Excellencies are which we deplore as loft in the Fall, the Gospel affures us, that fupervening Grace makes a full repair of them. Grace is new light to the understanding, and new power to the will, and new regularity to the faculties that ought to obey, and a new harmony to our whole discomposed frame. In a word, Grace is more to us now in the ftate of corruption, than in the state of primitive perfection we could have been to our felves. Whofoever therefore fhall confider the defects and impotence of our present state, together with the rich promises of God in Chrift, I know nothing that he ought reasonably to argue or infer thence but this, that we now lie under a ftricter obligation to live in a perpetual dependence upon God; that we have now a double tye to be Religious, that is, both to ferve God, and our felves; foralmuch as our addref |