The Fountain of Life Opened

And indeed if you search into the reason of it, you will be satisfied; that the choicest means can do nothing upon the heart, till Christ by his spirit open it, because ordinances work not as natural causes do: for then the effect would always follow, unless miraculously hindered, and it would be equally wonderful that all that hear should not be converted, as that the three Children should be in the fiery Furnace so long, and yet not be burned; no, it works not as a natural, but as amoral cause; whose efficacy depends on the gracious and arbitrary concurrence of the spirit. The wind bloweth where it listeth, Joh. 3.8. The ordinances are like the pool of Bethesda John 5.4. At a certain time an Angel came down and troubled the waters, and then they had a healing virtue in them. So the spirit comes down at certain times, in the word; and opens the heart, and then it becomes the power of God to Salvation. So that when you see souls daily sitting under excellent and choice means, and remain dead still; you may say as Martha did to Christ of her Brother Lazarus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, they had not remained dead. If thou hadst been in this Sermon, it had not been so in effectual to them.

And indeed if you search into the reason of it, you will be satisfied; that the choicest means can do nothing upon the heart, till Christ by his spirit open it, because ordinances work not as natural causes do: for then the effect would always follow, unless miraculously hindred, and it would be equally wonderful that all that hear should not be converted, as that the three Children should be in the fiery Furnace so long, and yet not be burned; no, it works not as a natural, but as amoral cause; whose efficacy depends on the gracious and arbitrary concurrence of the spirit. The wind bloweth where it listeth, Joh. 3.8. The ordinances are like the pool of Bethesda Iohn 5.4. At a certain time an Angel came down and troubled the waters, and then they had a healing vertue in them. So the spirit comes down at certain times, in the word; and opens the heart, and then it becomes the power of God to Salvation. So that when you see souls daily sitting under excellent and choice means, and remain dead still; you may say as Martha did to Christ of her Brother Lazarus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, they had not remained dead. If thou hadst been in this Sermon, it had not been so in effectual to them.