A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures

Now by this time possibly it may arise up in the hearts of some profane ones, Object. to make the same Objection, as some did in the Apostles days, against the Doctrine of Election; if it be so, that it is not in my own power to keep my self from the commission of sin, yea of the greatest and worst sins but only God's Power; why doth he yet complain? why doth he yet find fault with us for doing that, which we cannot but do, unless he himself preserve us from it?

I might here take occasion to vindicate the Equity and Righteousness of Answ. ⟨p. 260⟩God, in requiring from us the exercise of that Power, that he bestowed upon our natures at first, and which we lost only through our own wilful default but I have done this divers times already, and therefore, I shall only at present briefly consider what Power Men have still lest them, both in a State of Nature, and in a State of Grace, to keep themselves from the commission of Sin, and that in a few particulars briefly.

I might here take occasion to vindicate the Equity and Righteousness of Answ. ⟨p. 260⟩God, in requiring from us the exercise of that Power, that he bestowed upon our natures at first, and which we lost only through our own willful default but I have done this divers times already, and therefore, I shall only at present briefly consider what Power Men have still lest them, both in a State of Nature, and in a State of Grace, to keep themselves from the commission of Sin, and that in a few particulars briefly.

First then, Clear it is, that whatever Power Men have either to naturals or to spirituals; yet they cannot act or exercise that Power, without exciting influence from God to quicken and rouse it; who will say, that a Man that sits hath not power to rise, and that a Man that stands hath not power to walk; and yet it is certain, he neither shall rise nor walk, unless God move and excite and rouse that power of his, and put it upon that work, for in him as we live, so we move and have our being: so then the power to use our power is from God's quickening, enlivening, and actuating of us.