3. God, being not only a Sovereign Agent, but an Almighty one, can by his Power, and that in an instant, remove all hindrances on the Creatures part, and whatever might obstruct his work; and so with one turn of an Omnipotent hand, bring about the heart of the most obdurate Sinner, work repentance in the most unlikely Subject, and where there is most within to make head against him, and resist his Grace, suppose the most obstinate and rooted habits of sin. Grace is an infused and supernatural habit, and the power that works it a supernatural and creating Power; and we are not to confine God in his working Grace, to those methods whereby men acquire natural or moral habits. In these, I grant, there may need time to unlearn, and extirpate those vicious habits they have so long been contracting, and to acquire new ones by a long series of, and accustoming themselves to better actions. Custom in Men may be strong, and like another Nature, and they may not be able presently to overcome it, nor on the sudden to bring themselves to a readiness and easiness in doing those things, which tho their reason approves, yet their boisterous appetites, (strengthened too by custom) hurry them against. But let the habit of sin be never so deeply radicated in the Soul, and the Heart of Man never so averse to holy actions, yet God can soon make a change; soon remove the sinful disposition, and enable and incline the Soul to what it was most averse and impotent. He can even in a moment overcome that love of sin, and hatred of holiness which is either natural to a Man, or contracted by him, and both abate, lessen, weaken the power of sin in the Soul, whereby it was wont to resist the workings of his Spirit, and restrain and suspend any actual resistance it might make. Let the mind of a Man be as dark as darkness it self, ⟨p. 233⟩yet he that caused light to shine out of darkness can enlighten that mind when he pleases, 2 Cor. 4.6. Let the Soul be never so dead in sin, and destitute of all Spiritual Life, yet he that quickens the dead, and calls things that are not as tho they were, Rom. 4.17. can quicken it, and breathe the Breath of Spiritual Life into it; and whatever there be in the Soul to oppose him in his working, yet the same power can at once quell the opposition, and produce the Grace.
3. God, being not only a Sovereign Agent, but an Almighty one, can by his Power, and that in an instant, remove all hindrances on the Creatures part, and whatever might obstruct his work; and so with one turn of an Omnipotent hand, bring about the heart of the most obdurate Sinner, work repentance in the most unlikely Subject, and where there is most within to make head against him, and resist his Grace, suppose the most obstinate and rooted habits of sin. Grace is an infused and supernatural habit, and the power that works it a supernatural and creating Power; and we are not to confine God in his working Grace, to those methods whereby men acquire natural or moral habits. In these, I grant, there may need time to unlearn, and extirpate those vitious habits they have so long been contracting, and to acquire new ones by a long series of, and accustoming themselves to better actions. Custom in Men may be strong, and like another Nature, and they may not be able presently to overcome it, nor on the sudden to bring themselves to a readiness and easiness in doing those things, which tho their reason approves, yet their boysterous appetites, (strengthned too by custom) hurry them against. But let the habit of sin be never so deeply radicated in the Soul, and the Heart of Man never so averse to holy actions, yet God can soon make a change; soon remove the sinful disposition, and enable and encline the Soul to what it was most averse and impotent. He can even in a moment overcome that love of sin, and hatred of holiness which is either natural to a Man, or contracted by him, and both abate, lessen, weaken the power of sin in the Soul, whereby it was wont to resist the workings of his Spirit, and restrain and suspend any actual resistance it might make. Let the mind of a Man be as dark as darkness it self, ⟨p. 233⟩yet he that caused light to shine out of darkness can enlighten that mind when he pleases, 2 Cor. 4.6. Let the Soul be never so dead in sin, and destitute of all Spiritual Life, yet he that quickens the dead, and calls things that are not as tho they were, Rom. 4.17. can quicken it, and breathe the Breath of Spiritual Life into it; and whatever there be in the Soul to oppose him in his working, yet the same power can at once quell the opposition, and produce the Grace.
