The real Christian, or, A treatise of effectual calling wherein the work of God…

Secondly, I answer to the Objection: if a man be prepared for Christ, yet if there be no necessary connection between preparation and saving faith, as Doctor Ames, Mr, Pemble, and many of our able Divines affirm, then it will not follow, that because men are prepared, therefore they ought to believe Christ is theirs, forgiveness of sin theirs.

Secondly, I answer to the Objection: if a man be prepared for Christ, yet if there be no necessary connexion between preparation and saving faith, as Doctor Ames, Mr, Pemble, and many of our able Divines affirm, then it will not follow, that because men are prepared, therefore they ought to believe Christ is theirs, forgiveness of sin theirs.

It is one thing for a man to be prepared, to lay hold on Christ, another to be so prepared, to say truly, Christ is mine: between preparation for Christ, and the Souls saying Christ is mine, there must come in another Act, as the ground of this, such an Act, as Christ will own this Soul to be his, and that is, the reception of him upon his terms; if Christ will say, this Soul is mine, then may that Soul say, Christ is mine; but not else to any true comfort.

The Minor needs no proof: for Ministers in pressing all men to believe Christ is theirs, forgiveness theirs, is to press most men to believe a lye, is so evident to them that look on their Congregations, that it doth not deserve Arguments so much to prove it, as tears to lament it.