I shall proceed to the Answer of the first Question in the general. 1. Unregenerate Men may make a great progress, and may go very far towards Grace, and yet fall short of it; that in general is to be Almost a Christian. This I laid down in the Method propounded to you. Although ⟨p. 18⟩though I say not they go as far as they can by the power of Nature, and yet fall short of Grace; for that can never be instanced in any; yet the sad and wretched Apostasy of those who have been eminent Professors, shining, yea, and glaring Lights, exceeding, and also despising common attainments of others; their Apostasy hath too evidently confirmed it to us, that Men may go very far towards Grace, and yet fall short of it. See what Christ saith Mark. 12.24. of that young Man, that forward young Man, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God; that is, thou art not far from Grace; for so the Kingdom of God is oftentimes taken in Scripture for the Kingdom of Grace, so that we may say of such Men, they were not far from the Kingdom of God, not far from Grace, not far from Heaven, climbing up almost thither, within view and ken of it, having one foot, as it were, upon the Threshold of the Heavenly Gate; and yet even these tumble headlong, and never rest until they have plunged themselves to the bottom of Hell. It is with such Men as it is with the Vapours that are drawn up into the Air, they shine with the same Light, with the same apparent ⟨p. 19⟩Magnitude as the fixed Stars themselves do, and we may think them moving in the very same Sphere with them; but when we see them dart down to the Earth, and spilling all that Light and Glory, which they glistered with by the way, and fall into a filthy Jelly, thicker and more loathsome Substance than when they were first exhaled, we then conclude that all that Elevation of those false and blazing Lights, was vastly short of that Heaven in which they seemed sometime to be fixed. So is it with many unregenerate Men; you cannot tell with what they are fraught till you see them shipwrecked; then it is a sign, that though they were never right and true Treasure, yet they are something very like it: When we see them tumbling down off a glorious Profession through fatal Precipices of great, gross, and desperate Sins, we may sadly conclude that that Man was not far from the Kingdom of God, though he was never yet there.
I shall proceed to the Answer of the first Question in the general. 1. Unregenerate Men may make a great progress, and may go very far towards Grace, and yet fall short of it; that in general is to be Almost a Chrstian. This I laid down in the Method propounded to you. Although ⟨p. 18⟩though I say not they go as far as they can by the power of Nature, and yet fall short of Grace; for that can never be instanced in any; yet the sad and wretched Apostacy of those who have been eminent Professors, shining, yea, and glaring Lights, exceeding, and also despising common attainments of others; their Apostacy hath too evidently confirmed it to us, that Men may go very far towards Grace, and yet fall short of it. See what Christ saith Mark. 12.24. of that young Man, that forward young Man, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God; that is, thou art not far from Grace; for so the Kingdom of God is oftentimes taken in Scripture for the Kingdom of Grace, so that we may say of such Men, they were not far from the Kingdom of God, not far from Grace, not far from Heaven, climbing up almost thither, within view and ken of it, having one foot, as it were, upon the Threshold of the Heavenly Gate; and yet even these tumble headlong, and never rest until they have plunged themselves to the bottom of Hell. It is with such Men as it is with the Vapours that are drawn up into the Air, they shine with the same Light, with the same apparent ⟨p. 19⟩Magnitude as the fixed Stars themselves do, and we may think them moving in the very same Sphere with them; but when we see them dart down to the Earth, and spilling all that Light and Glory, which they glistered with by the way, and fall into a filthy Jelly, thicker and more loathsome Substance than when they were first exhaled, we then conclude that all that Elevation of those false and blazing Lights, was vastly short of that Heaven in which they seemed sometime to be fixed. So is it with many unregenerate Men; you cannot tell with what they are fraught till you see them shipwracked; then it is a sign, that though they were never right and true Treasure, yet they are something very like it: When we see them tumbling down off a glorious Profession through fatal Precipices of great, gross, and desperate Sins, we may sadly conclude that that Man was not far from the Kingdom of God, though he was never yet there.
