Speculum theologiæ in Christo, or, A view of some divine truths which are either…

Fourthly, An holy Life is humble and dependant upon the influences of God's Spirit and Grace. Hence the Apostle bids us, Work out our Salvation with fear and trembling, Phil. 2.12. That is, with all humility: And the Reason is added, For God worketh to ⟨p. 415⟩will, and to do of his good pleasure, vers. 13. which would be no Reason at all, if we could stand upon our own bottom, and work out our Salvation without any dependence upon that Grace, which worketh the Will and the Deed: But if, as the reason tells us, God works the Will and the deed of his good pleasure, then we have all the reason in the World to work it out with fear and trembling; as knowing our dependence upon God and his Grace. Again; The Apostle saith of himself, I laboured more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the Grace of God, which was with me, 1 Cor. 15.10. Observe his great caution; he ascribes nothing to himself, but all to Grace. He said indeed, I laboured; yet he piously retracts it, saying, yet not I, but the Grace of God. He ascribes all to Grace, because in all his labours he was in an humble dependence upon it, as being that without which he could do nothing. This note of an holy Life doth also show, that the Moral Virtues of the Heathens were not right: they were indeed wise, sober, just, merciful; but what was their posture in their doing these things? how did they crow, and reflect upon themselves, and cry up their own Reason and Will, as the only Fountains of Virtue? The Philosopher, saith Epictetus, expects all [Greek or Hebrew] from himself. ¹Deorum immortalium munus est, quod vivimus, Philosophiae, quod benè vivimus, ²Our Life is from the Gods; but, which is greater than Life, our Virtue is from Philosophy. Thus Seneca, their Virtuoso, could vie perfection with God himself:³ Hoc est quod Philosophia mihi promittit, ut me parem Deo faciat, saith Seneca: Philosophy was to make him equal to God. Nay, there is a strain higher;⁴