Riches of mercy to men in misery, or, Certain excellent treatises concerning the dignity…

Now secondly, that whereby you may examine whether ¹you have this property of grace, whether you have this strength of grace in you or no, it is this: Consider what you are able to do in the acts of new obedience; the power of grace is seen, that it enableth you to do them, when another man cannot do them. In the first we had to do with the nature; and then I told you that grace heals corrupt nature, and puts more into you then common nature: This second thing is distinct from that, and is seen in the actions. And the third is seen in the intentions: In these three the strength of grace is seen. There is scarce any man but hath some good intentions, some good purposes; but when they come to the birth, there is no strength to bring forth, men are not able to perform them. Now grace wheresoever it is, hath so much strength, as not only to beget good motions, but it is powerful and effectual to bring them forth into act. Grace is an effectual Mid-wife to bring purposes and conceptions to performances, enabling us to do them. Therefore by that you may try it, whether grace strengthen you to performance, and practice that which you purpose and desire to do. It is observed, that your fennish and rotten ground suddenly shoots out a broad blade of grass, but we know it is unprofitable to any man, whereas good ground that brings forth good grass, brings it not forth so suddenly, nor so broad; so those that have unsoundness of heart, they may go so far as to have some sudden good purposes, and desires, and motions, and conceptions, but y•t they come to nothing, they are but foggy purposes as it w•re, they do not last, they vanish away; and what is the reason of that? they want true rooting, they want this grace that should strengthen them, and make the soil good. There wants that depth ⟨p. 200⟩of earth, that is, there wants that depth of sincerity, and there wants that sound and convincing knowledge to carry them through all objections, and that is the reason that men have good desires, and yet so little performance. Let his desires be never so good, when he meets with stronger reasons and arguments from the flesh, or the world, or the devil, he gives over, because he hath no strength to answer them. So that when we come to perform our desires, it is grace that must give us strength, when we have not that we give over.