The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…

Direct. 4. The presence or operation of the Spirit of God is ⟨p. 206⟩casually the spiritual Life of man, in his holiness: As there is no natural Being but by influence from his Being; so no Life but by communication from his Life, and no Light but from his Light, and no Love or Goodness, but from his Spirit of Love.

It is therefore a vain conceit of them, that think man in innocency had not the Spirit of God: They that say, his natural rectitude was instead of the Spirit, do but say, and unsay: for his natural rectitude was the effect of the influx or communication of Gods Spirit: And he could have no moral rectitude without it; as there can be no effect without the chief cause: The nature of Love and Holiness cannot subsist, but in dependence on the Love and Holiness of God: And those Papists who talk of mans state first in pure naturals, and an after donation of the Spirit, must mean by pure naturals, man in his mere essentials, not really, but notionally by abstraction distinguished, from the same man at the same instant as a Saint; or else they speak unsoundly: For God made man in moral dispositive goodness at the first; and the same Love or Spirit, which did first make him so, was necessary after to continue him so. It was never his nature to be a prime good, or to be good independently without the influence of the prime good, Isa. 44.3. Ezek. 36.27. Job 26.13. Psal. 51.10, 12. & 143.10. Prov. 20.27. Mal. 2.15.