The application of redemption

The Answer is easy, and at hand: These saving¹ Preparations are no acts of mine, therefore not my fruit, nor can I be said to do any thing to please God by them, because they are […] in me, not by me, and the soul may have a good work wrought upon it, and be the receiver of it though not the Author of it; but as they come from the Spirit of God who is holy and blessed, so are they good fruits, and truly pleasing to God.

The Answer is easie, and at hand: These saving¹ Preparations are no acts of mine, therefore not my fruit, nor can I be said to do any thing to please God by them, because they are 〈…〉 in me, not by me, and the soul may have a good work wrought upon it, and be the receiver of it though not the Author of it; but as they come from the Spirit of God who is holy and blessed, so are they good fruits, and truly pleasing to God.

1. 1Answ.

This Preparative Work imports not so much any gracious habit or spiritual quality which is put into the soul, as a principle by which it is enabled to act that which concerns its everlasting welfare: but its rather an act of the spirit of Christ, whereby it doth fling down those strong holds, dispossess the power of Satan, and quit the soul from those overpowering and prevailing claims which Satan and Sin […] over it, as to exercise their tyranny and authority upon it; The soul sues out a divorce; now that is to weaken, and wholly to remove the claim of marriage, and authority which the party challenged thereby to act upon the party and overrule her, and yet […] divorce is neither marriage nor matrimonial love, but making room for the right and possession of the spirit by faith; as