Chapter IV
That it is necessary, and congruous to the nature of things, that such inward
permanent principles should be wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, to enable
us to live holily.
I shall now give the reasons for this, both from the congruity and neces
sity of the thing.
1. It was meet and congruous, if not necessary, that God should proceed by the same law in the work of his new creation, that he doth in his first
creation. Now take the law that is common unto the whole creation of
God, and it will be found true upon a particular survey, that all acts or
workings of any kind, in any creature, have an inbred principle, suiting and enabling the creature that acts or works thereunto. God moves all his
creatures to their ends by inbred principles put into them. God in the
whole creation (qui disponit omnia suaviter) not only or barely assists or
concurs with his creatures, by a moving of them unto all their actions, but
furnisheth them with powers and virtues inbred, that are the principles of
such motions, by which they are inclined to such and such things, that so
their actions may be connatural to them. If a stone moves downward, it
: if the soul understand, it is not barely by light shot
hath a natural poise
into it, but there is an understanding power, faculty, or ability inbred, which beasts want ; of whom it is said they have no understanding. If
the soul joined to the body sees, it is by an eye endowed with a visive
faculty ; and so it is in hearing too. Again, in other creatures, you see an
inherent instinct put into them, guiding and swaying them to such or such
a particular action ; as you see in bees in framing their combs, and in birds
building their nests, and bearing love to their young ; by which also (as the
prophet says) the stork knows its appointed time. It is something inbred and interwoven with their nature. Even in arts and sciences acquired, there are imperfect abilities in nature, perfected by use, yet still so as there
204 THE WORK OF THE HOLY GHOST [BOOK V.
are principles, though imperfect, which are the foundations of them. He that invented painting first, or that hath attained the art of it, had images in the fancy, disposing him to begin to draw the pictures. And this also is the reason that some are excellent in one trade more than in another. In like manner, if a natural man performs any action morally good, he hath an inbred principle of light of conscience, impressions of moral -virtues, and the law written in his heart, that moves and instigates him thereunto ; and
it is an abiding principle in him : Rom. ii. 14, 15, Men do by nature the
things of the law, which shew the effect or substance of the law written in their hearts. Now it might be shewn that the new habiliments of the new creation are assimilated unto all these, the Holy Ghost having regulated and reduced the new creature to this common law.
1. It is like to the natural powers of seeing and understanding. 2. It is like to an instinct put into irrational creatures, who are taught of God to love their young. As concerning brotherly love, I shall not need to write unto you, says the apostle, 1 Thes. iv. 9, for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another. It is opposed to external teach
ings, and referred to the rank of instincts or endowments. As when God teacheth a brother to love his brother, the mother to love the child, or as God is said to teach the ploughman discretion and skill, Isa. xxviii. 26, in like manner all that come to Christ are said to be taught of God, John vi. 44. 45, by an impression on their spirits, such as the beasts had that came to the ark. He parallels it also with the law written in the heart by nature, yea, makes it infinitely the greater work, when he says, I will write my law in their hearts, and put it into their inward parts, Jer. xxxi. 33, 34. But although these are of themselves arguments, yet they are remoter confirmations unto that which I intend to make forth, viz., that the reason of the congruity or necessity is the same in the new creature as in the old. Yea, that there is a greater necessity in this than in the other, and that the soul shouldj be no less enabled and furnished to spiritual things than all other creatures are unto their actings, which generally and universally is by having an internal principle enabling them so to act.
1. There is as much reason and necessity it should be thus in the new creation, as in the old.
(1.) Because this rule holds both in the second creation and in the first, that everything that acts should act according to its kind ; and they are
differing inbred principles that put the difference of kind between one creature and another. Every creature hath a proper, special nature, that doth constitute its kind, and then the fruits and effects are answerable thereto. You have this law, Gen. i. 21 and 24, concerning fishes, and beasts, and plants ; trees bring forth differing fruits because of differing kinds given them, and that depends upon inbred principles, which are existent in them, even in winter, when they do not bring forth. Our Saviour Christ bringeth this very law of the first creation into the second, and urgeth it upon the Pharisees : Mat. vii. 17, 18, Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. And then in Matthew xii. 33 Christ says, Either make the tree good, and its fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt ; for the tree is known by his fruit. Wherein (although Christ urgeth not
regeneration, but conviction) make the tree/ &c., that is, acknowledge yourselves to be bad when your fruits are bad, and so on the contrary ; yet
CHAP. IV.] IN OUR SALVATION. 205
the ground of his conviction lies invincibly in this truth, that ere a man can bring forth a good work he must be made inwardly and radically good, for acts follow nature. Also in another place he says, Can you gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? Can you that are evil speak good
things ?
(2.) It is so, because to have inbred principles of actings maketh the
creature to act connaturally and sweetly. Thus though a mother, as a woman, hath love in her, yet to act the more naturally in the loving her
child, a special instinct is requisite. The sun rejoiceth to run his race, and
so all creatures rejoice to keep God s ordinances to this day, Ps. cxix., because God hath put inbred principles in them so to do. Now of all act
ings of his creatures, God would have it so that this of souls in gracious
actings should be most connatural, and done with the greatest alacrity, and
that his people should be a willing people, Ps. ex., and be acted by a
free spirit, Ps. li., not by constraint, but of a willing mind. God would have the new creature so to move itself in its actings as to be the inward formal principle of that work, that it might in that respect be termed its own. And therefore as all other creatures have to their actings inbred
principles to enable them unto their actings, so it was most meet that the
soul of man, and especially the will, should have a bias clapped on it, a poise, an inclination, or (as the apostle s phrase is)
* a readiness, whereof God
accepts more than of the deed, 2 Cor. viii. 10-12.
2. There is a far greater necessity for the soul to have new principles, abilities given to act holily and spiritually, than at the first creation to act
naturally. And the reason is far more strong, because the acts are spiritual and supernatural, and so are the objects. God and Christ, as they are revealed in the gospel, are supernatural unto the natural powers and faculties of the soul, and there is no proportion between them. There is not only such a disproportion as the bat s eye hath unto the sun, but as a blind man s eye is to the sun. In man s corrupt state, yea, and at man s best
estate in innocency, though God, as revealed in the creature, and in outward
effects, was the natural object of man s understanding, that is, which was
naturally ordained for it by the due of creation, yet God, as in himself to be
revealed, had that disproportion unto that estate, that a spirit or an angel, not appearing in some outward effect, hath to the eye of a seeing man. The most quick-sighted in that case must have a new eye, a spiritual eye made, or the same eye endowed with new spiritual power. And therefore the
Scripture speaks of this as giving a new visive power, as eyes to see, and
ears to hear, and 1 John v. 20 it is said, He hath given an understand
ing to know him that is true, speaking both of God and Christ. It is not
merely to relieve the weakness of natural sight, as when one is to see an
object far distant by the help of an optic ; or as when Stephen was enabled
to see and behold Christ s body in heaven, which of itself is visible, as the sun is, though disproportioned in excellency ; but it is spiritual sight given wholly to enable the eye to see the spiritual objects, and to take them in. And therefore the phrase which the Scripture everywhere useth is, that
else men cannot see them, nor know them, nor receive them, as hath been
said. And therefore there is a necessity of infusion of such spiritual
abilities, for there are no principles in man for him to begin with, by which
they should be acquired.
But here a further question hath been made : Whether the necessity of such inherent principles as these is such, that God by his absolute power might not raise up, and draw forth out of the soul supernatural spiritual
206 THE WOKE OF THE HOLY GHOST [BOOK V.
acts, without infusing such new principles as powers into the soul first ? Whether God s motions and excitations, and actings upon the understand
ing and will, might not elevate them unto such acts as Stephen s eye, with out a new power of seeing, was elevated and raised up to see Christ s body in heaven ?
I answer this ; that it is not for the understanding of us poor creatures
to forge shackles, or set limits to the absolute power of God, or to say he can work this and not that. Yet I think this may in the first place safely be said, that,
1. As to the privative part, there must at least be a destruction of that habit of sin in respect of the strength and the impression which it had in
the soul afore. For if the soul be naturally full, and all over possessed with
nothing but flesh, according to what is in John iii. 6, That which is born
of the flesh is flesh ; then whilst it doth so remain it can never be brought to act the contrary, no, not in the least spiritual act, for there is something within that hinders. Whilst the mind inwardly remains fleshly, it cannot be subject to the law of God, Rom viii. 7. That word speaks the com mon language of nature, that whilst such a form remains, and fully possesseth the mind, it cannot be brought to act the contrary. God indeed can change fire into water in an instant, and so that which was fire shall moisten ; but whilst it remains fire, and is continued to be such, we may say that it cannot do so. Indeed, it may be kept from acting as fire, as the
fire of Nebuchadnezzar s furnace was, but it cannot be brought to do the
contrary. And thus the Scripture pronounceth of the fleshly mind, remain
ing such, that it cannot be subject to God, and that those who are in the
flesh cannot please God, Rom. viii. 7, 8. Yea, even of a regenerate man, so far as flesh is in him, so far as he is still possessed with flesh, the apostle says he cannot will or do good, Gal. v. 17. It is not only that he wants an
ability, but he hath an habitual contrariety, an enmity, as one contrary form hath to another ; and that contrariety therefore must necessarily be destroyed and expelled, that the soul, being so far freed from it, may be capable to act holily. So then at least we may say, that that part of regeneration we
call mortification, or (as it is expressed in Ezekiel) the taking away the heart of stone, is an habitual permanent work absolutely necessary. If it be said (as it is by some) that if Adam s soul, being wholly filled with holiness, fell into an act of sin without a principle of sinning first in
it, therefore a soul, possessed with nothing but flesh and enmity to God, may be elevated to a supernatural act.
I reply, first, That when Adam s soul fell into that act of sinning, the holiness that was in him was that very moment expelled ; and so then the
parallel here must be, that at the same instant the soul is raised to holi
ness, the contrary corruption must be so far expelled also. And as, in the act of sin, Adam s soul slipped the collar of its habitual grace, and so ran away from God, so must the heart, as it is acted holy, slip from so much of its inbred corruption at the same instant. But if you will suppose that
corruption doth remain in its full strength and possession, it is such an uncircumcision as keeps the soul in an impotency to any such act.
But, secondly, The fuller answer is this, that there is not the same rea son of raising up man to act holy, as there is of his falling into sin. For the possibility of his falling into sin lies in his deficiency and mutability as he was a creature, and in his aptness to fall, which his will was subject to, merely as it is a creature made out of nothing, and so its habit of grace doth perish by that deficiency when it falls out. Solum liberum arbitrium
CHAP. IV.] IN OUR SALVATION. 207
sufficiebat ad malum was Augustine s constant cry, the deficient will of man need no innate principle to sin, its frailty was sufficient, or rather, insuffi
cient to it. But it is not so in the power to do good, as it is in the trans
gression ; as in another like case the apostle speaks. To sin, the soul need not be first made sinful, to constitute it formally an intrinsecal agent in it, for this may arise from a defect ; but if man will become a supernatural worker, and as an intrinsecal agent formally produce a good work, he must have such a divine form, or nature, first infused in him, or it will not be natural in him and genuine, nor is he capable to do it.
2. As to the positive part, viz., the necessity of the infusion of a new
principle. There are many that deny that any more than a help and a
supernatural assistance is absolute needful, because the almighty power of God can and doth (say they) supply the room of such an inward principle, and so raise up and actuate the understanding or will without it. For (say they) in the soul God finds a faculty of understanding, capable of that
spiritual knowledge of him ; and the habit, or the new principle you call
for (say they), serves but to enable or elevate that understanding to take
into it God in a spiritual manner. Now that which your supposed habit contributes hereto, why may not (say they) the power of God supply by a mere acting of that understanding, and raising it up to such acts by an
almighty motion of his joining with it and overpowering the soul to it ? There is this difference (say they) between the necessity of an understand
ing faculty and of this new spiritual principle ; that if we suppose that first
wanting, then all must say the power of God doth not supply the room of
it. God doth not understand for us, but man understands only with his own understanding, nor without an understanding can he understand, as a
beast, remaining a beast, cannot. But now for that other case of a habit, that being (say they) but a help to the understanding, may be supplied ; for what help a second cause affordeth, that the power of God alone can, if he
please, supply without it. But if the Scripture itself, and the Spirit that wrote it, and also works
all grace in the heart, and knows best the proportion of things, do speak of this new inward principle of habitual grace, in the same language that
it doth of this power of the natural understanding itself, or as it doth of the visive faculty whereby we see, terming it an eye to see, an ear to hear, a heart to understand, terming it also an understanding given, that we may know : then even that also is to be judged to be to the soul, in under
standing supernatural things, of the same nature and necessity, that an
understanding itself is to know natural things. Yea, if it be a principle of
life unto the soul of one that is dead, as a new life to a dead eye, as in
Scripture it is termed (Eph. ii. 1, 5, compared), and if it is expressly termed eternal life itself inherent in a man, 1 John iii. 15, which doth constitute him formally a living man, in respect of that kind of life which is spiritual and supernatural
: if this be so, then upon the same necessity, that an
understanding faculty is required to a natural act, this new understanding, power, or spirit (as my text calls it), this new heart and new spirit to un
derstanding things supernatural withal, is as absolutely required. All
grant this, that though God can give to this stone an understanding, yet he cannot be supposed to make a stone to understand without an under
standing faculty. Now in order unto an act of understanding spiritual
things, this new principle infused is so styled, and is really in its propor tion such, so as without it the soul is said to have no understanding, but to be blind, yea dead, as to these things that are spiritual. God can and
208 THE WORK OF THE HOLY GHOST [BOOK V.
did take a body of red earth, and breathed into it the breath of life, and caused it to live ; but it was not possible to have made and constituted it a living soul, as the Scripture terms Adam, without having a living soul put into it, and united to it, for a thing cannot be caused to live without a spirit of life. Now so it is here, as those scriptures clearly shew. We must not
call these new principles, powers, or faculties in the soul, in the same
respect, or sense, that the understanding is in and to the soul. For the understanding is one and the same understanding faculty, and so is the
subject of that spiritual act, after regeneration, that it was afore ; and it is the same understanding that understood other things afore, or that doth now understand other things besides spiritual things after regeneration. But by analogy it is affirmed to be a new power and a new understanding, in this respect, because the soul, which hath but one and the same faculty of understanding, must be enlivened with this grace as another life to it, ere it can spiritually understand. That grace puts a new ability into the
understanding, as necessary as the understanding itself is to understand
withal, as all the scriptures shew.
If indeed such principles as acquired habits do serve to give only facility or easiness in working, or serve but as spectacles to an eye that can see
already, only to help it to see better and more clearly, or to see what else at such a distance it could not see, then the work might be supplied onlv with God s external actings. But these principles of grace do give potentiam simpliciter, as some schoolmen speak, power simply and absolutely. Yea, and say I, it is not only analogous to a new power, but it is to the soul more than a new power, and of a sublimer nature, and greater worth than all men s
understandings devoid of it. It is spirit (says the text), which is more than a power. It is a divine nature, which is more than a natural power. It is indeed as the soul is to a dead eye, when it comes to enliven and in form it, which is more than to give an eye simply or barely organised, and fitted to see. Or at least it is, if not as the soul, yet as the life itself, by which, as diffused from the soul, the eye is made a living eye, and so im mediately capable of that vital or living act of seeing ; and by reason of which it is a seeing eye, a living eye, when yet it ceaseth to behold
anything, as when closed, and in sleep. It is the seed of God, which
(as the seed of any other thing) hath the virtue of that which it cometh from in such a manner as the soul itself hath not, though it cometh from God.
That which hath much conduced to misguide the schoolmen* in this great point, hath been,
1. Their addictedness to the natural power of man s will and understand
ing, that in supernatural acts it should share with the grace of God. They have therefore easily been led to judge that these natural principles, strongly assisted, and only axtrinsecally acted by God as an efficient and mover with
* Aquinas distinguislieth the necessity of a principle of grace, and that of ordinary habit thus : of the first, ut intellectus fiat potens ; of the other, ut intellectus fiat potentior, I par. quaest. 12, artic. 5.
Suarez, when he comes to the decision of this, treads upon ice ; and is loath to deny these principles of grace to be potential, because they give new power to the soul ; and yet he must have the natural power of the soul itself to be a sharer with them in their motion, supernaturally, and therefore concludes it thus. Quod si guis, de nomine magis quam de re contendens, dicat hos habitus, quatenus dant potestatem agendi, vocandos esse potentiasj respondebimus saltern non esse potentias integras sen completas ; imo nee dare inchoationem, ut sic dicam, et radicalem potestatem : at dare quasi complementum potestatis. Lib. 6. de grat. C. 5. Num. 12.
CHAP. IV.J IN OUR SALVATION. 209
them, might produce such acts : and that such divine habits as grace are
only required to make them more natural to the powers of the soul.
2. The schoolmen s mistake in this point ariseth from their opinion, that
the natural understanding and will in the soul are the root or principle of whatever life or act, either spiritual or natural, the soul produceth as a
living agent. So that it is the natural understanding, and other faculties
in the soul, which (as they speak), are the sole principium vitale, that is, the living principle, or seat and subject of all life. The soul, and the active
faculties and powers thereof, are those that live and have that life in them, and so live this supernatural life. And this is proper to that which lives, that it intrinsecally moves itself; for so you know all living things do, and not from an extrinsecal force or power acting them, as stones are moved.
And therefore (say they), the soul and its powers having an inward prin
ciple of self-motion, there is nothing more required than that God should move and act them. But if they consulted the Scriptures they would find, that that which is termed the vital or lifeprinciple of this kind of life
spiritual and eternal in the soul, is not the natural powers of the soul ; but that all the life -principle the soul hath in understanding or willing, is natu
rally deadness unto this lile ; and that the grace infused is called eternal
life, &c. It is true, indeed, "the subject or root upon which this new prin
ciple, or power of spiritual life is engrafted, is the soul, and thereby it is diffused to the faculties of it, and so the natural soul is in that respect absolutely necessary as the subject of this new spiritual life (of which a
beast, remaining a beast, is not capable), and so the natural soul and its
faculties are as the root and foundation, or as the stock that the other new
principle of life is engrafted upon. But still that which is the formal next
complete principle or power of active life spiritual, as such, is that grace which God engrafts upon that stock, yea, and the whole of the soul s
principle of spiritual life doth lie and consist therein : though still if
this grace were not in such a subject, viz., a reasonable soul, that spi ritual principle of life would not be a life at all. Thus far indeed the natural powers do contribute unto it. So then in producing these super natural acts of knowing or loving God, there are three principles to be considered.
(1.) Principium quod, the principle which; that is, which is the seat and
subject of all ; and that is the soul, and its natural faculties, as they have a natural life in them.
(2.) There is principium quo, the principle of life by which the soul acts, and from which, as it acts spiritually, it hath a spiritual life ; and that,
say we, is grace infused, which is termed eternal life in a man.
(3.) There is God, who is the fountain and efficient cause and worker both of that principle of life in the soul, and then of all the acts from it, by his motions, influences, and helps, and elevations, and raisings up of that life to act according to its kind ; which actings, notwithstanding this infused life in us, do depend upon God s power to work them in us, Phil,
ii. 13, as much as the infusion of life itself doth.
This being thus explained, herein lies to me the necessity of such an inward principle of spiritual life to be infused (besides what life of under
standing or willing the soul hath of itself, as also besides God s assisting motions and strengthenings), that if any soul be ever brought to put forth
any act of spiritual supernatural life, that soul must be constituted or made
first a supernatural living agent or worker : it must be put into that order or rank of agents or workers, and thereby so be fitted to move from, and VOL. vi. o
210 THE WOEK OF THE HOLY GHOST [BOOK V.
within itself, as a supernatural living agent or worker, that so all such acts
of life as proceed from it may come to be denominated, or called its own, as acts of a creature that now lives such a supernatural kind of life, and
so that every holy action may be termed the act of its own life, when it so
works. And the reason is clear from the analogy or like proportion of any other living agent in any kind. For if any act of any living creature be
accounted a living act, or a life-act, that creature must first be a living
creature, endued with that kind of life which the act itself is of, which it doth put forth. If it be an act of natural or sensitive life (as to see, hear,
&c.), as in a beast, necessarily the beast must be a living beast, or crea
ture ; living, I say, within itself that kind of life it putteth forth in tha
act, or that action cannot be a living action. Now then, by the same rea son and proportion (for such as the act is, such is and must be the prin
ciple that works it, which holds in this and other kinds of life whatever)
if the soul come ever to produce a supernatural-life-act (as I may call it)
it is absolutely necessary it be constituted and put into the rank of a super natural -life -agent, to have a principle of supernatural life wholly anew com municated unto it, over and above its being in the order or rank of nature
catalogue a life-agent. And though men talk that the soul, with its facul
ties, is a living principle, yet still it is not & living principle supernatu-
rally, otherwise than life, eternal life ; and the soul, with all its faculties
remaining purely natural, is dead in respect to that life. Another thing that deceived many of the schoolmen is, that they take
the similitude of acquired habits, and make the measure by which to judge of these infused habits, and so imagine that the natural faculties are the immediate subjects of the infused principles of grace, and not the sou
itself, even as those natural faculties are of such acquired habits ; and so
they thought these infused habits of grace should be no otherwise required in order unto working, than those other acquired. Now it is certain anc
granted, that God s power extraordinary can in an instant supply the defec
of such kind of habits, only by assisting acts, without infusing any new
principle. Thus whereas man s tongue is apt to learn, and acquire by
pains and use, any tongue or language in use, yet God in the primitive time
did, without infusing the settled permanent habit of speaking such an< such a tongue, assist a man s mind for that present, whilst the Spirit acte(
him, to speak or interpret that language, as if he had learned it by use Thus some spake with tongues who did not understand the tongue, anc some interpreted a tongue that were not able to speak it ; as might seem
by some passages in 1 Cor. xiv. Now, indeed, if those supernatural prin
ciples we speak of, were, at the highest supposition, but the infusion o such abilities as these, that might be otherwise acquired in time, by the natural powers of the soul by use, then indeed the opposite assertion migh
pass, that God could (by his assisting power alone) supply without such a
principle, what the infusion of the principle served for ; because the natu
ral soul, as such, did hold a proportion to such acts, if it were acted and
assisted by God ; for as it is a natural soul, it might acquire them of itself But it is not so in the principles of grace, for they belong wholly to another
rank, and order, and kind of life, as hath been said. They are not such
superficiary, washy tinctures, or additional impressions on the soul, such
as those other habits which are seated but finger deep (as when a man s
fingers, fancy, and memory have acquired a skill to play on musical instru
ments, musical tunes, which have no deeper subject than the finger, fancy, and memory), but this heavenly tincture goes deeper. It is not as an ordi-
CHAP. V.] IN OUE SALVATION . 211
nary accident seated immediately in an accident, that is, the immediate
subject of graces are not the faculties of the understanding and will, as they are powers and accidents themselves in the soul ; but this heaven-born
image and likeness of God (which is more worth than all men s souls), is
immediately by God diffused into the soul itself ; and the soul is as imme
diately the subject of it as of those powers themselves. It is not in the
soul only as paint or white in a wall, in the outward superficies of it ; but
as light in the body of the sun, and as the glory that is in the spiritual bodies of men at the resurrection. The God of peace sanctify you throughout (says the apostle) in body, soul, and spirit ; yea, it seizeth on the spirit of the mind itself, Eph. iv. 23, that is, if there be anything pure, the soul is throughout immediately steeped and dyed in it ; it hath it
by infusion (as the school word is), or it is shed abroad in the heart, as the
Scripture saith. It is in the soul as a new soul or life to it, and it then
diffuseth itself to those powers that are therein : and in the understanding
it becomes a spiritual understanding, and the light of life : in the will it becomes love, an infusion of love to that God above itself, whose image it
is. And so it is indeed a thing (which I have all this while pleaded it to
be) that deserves as much to be styled a new power, and life in the soul, as those natural faculties themselves are said to be. Neither is it beholden
to them for its interest and station in the soul, but can vie with them for immediateness of inherency. Yea, it inspiriteth and teacheth them, and actuates them with new powers of an endless life, which they had not
afore. And so by this means, this new principle of grace becomes an ear
to hear, an eye to see, an understanding to know spiritual things, as spi
ritual, in as real a manner as these other natural powers of understanding and will are, in their kind of life, able to perceive natural things.