The right method for a settled peace of conscience, and spiritual comfort in 32…

Yet your Willingness must be greater then your unwillingness; and so Christ must have the prevailing part of your will; and from that the denomination is usually taken so that Scripture useth to affirm Gods people ⟨p. 99⟩to be willing, even when they fail in the execution. So Paul Rom. 7.18. saith, To will is present with me, when how to do or perform he found not: that is, not to obey so perfectly as he would do: not to love God so intensely and fervently; not to subdue passions and lusts so throughly; not to watch our thoughts, and words, and ways so narrowly, and order them so exactly as the bent of his will did consent to. And lest any Arminian should pretend (as they do) that Paul speaks here in the person of an unregenerate man, as under the convictions of the Law, and not as a man regenerate; it is plain in the text that he speaks of himself in the state which he was then in, and that state was a regenerate state: He expressly saith, It is thus and thus with me; So then I my self with my mind do serve the Law of God: but with my flesh the Law of sin, ver. 25. And to put it out of doubt, the Apostle speaks the like of all Christians, Gal. 5.17. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary •he one to the other▪ so that ye cannot do the things •hat ye would. This is the plain exposition of Rom. 7. Here Scripture maketh the Godly Willing to do more then they do, or can do: •ut yet it is not a perfect Willingness, but it •s the Prevailing Inclination and Choice of •he Will, and that gives the name.

Yet your Willingness must be greater then your unwillingness; and so Christ must have the prevailing part of your will; and from that the denomination is usually taken so that Scripture useth to affirm Gods people ⟨p. 99⟩