Influences of the life of grace

Christ and reprobates so never come to wrestling, and to ay and no in the inner gate, or in the pains of the new birth: the sentence of a refused treaty with Christ, long ere it come to the out-breaking of the new birth cuts, them off: green corn is frost-slain long ere it come to the blade; and it's not the rotting of a white and ripe harvest that is the loss of it; it's just providence in the Gardiner to cut down and throw over the hedge a plant that is withered while it is yet young, as it is right that he hew down a tree ready to bear fruit when it's barren and rotten. The Lord hath not set down in his word the degrees of transgression against the covenant of works; some in Adam might have been more, some less grievous transgressors (should all have been saved or damned by that only covenant;) and since it cannot be denied that multitudes within the visible Church perish for their sin against the Law, or the externally proposed Covenant of grace, and yet all these so perishing are not alike guilty; our Saviour says some had greater guiltiness in his sufferings then Pilate had, John 19. 11. holy and spotless justice doth cut off some in their sins for ⟨p. 246⟩sinning against that Covenant, whether it be the Covenant of grace so called, or the Covenant of works, who even are many mile distant from sinning against the actings of the regenerating spirit, and some come nearer to the strangling of the new birth,¹ and are cut off by holy justice also. When our Saviour saith, John 3. 18, 36. He that believeth not is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him; his meaning shall not be, that all condemned within the visible Church perish, because the man coming to the nick of a gracious receiving of Christ, and having done all requisite to a professor until it come to the breaking forth of the new birth, he there only fails; for many sins and degrees of failing against that Covenant (however it be called) go before that, by reason whereof men are said not to believe in the Son of God, and upon which account they remain under wrath, and are condemned for non-believing:

Christ and reprobates so never come to wrestling, and to ay and no in the inner gate, or in the pains of the new birth: the sentence of a refused treaty with Christ, long e're it come to the out-breaking of the new birth cuts, them off: green corn is frost-slain long e're it come to the blade; and it's not the rotting of a white and ripe harvest that is the loss of it; it's just providence in the Gardiner to cut down and throw over the hedge a plant that is withered while it is yet young, as it is right that he hew down a tree ready to bear fruit when it's barren and rotten. The Lord hath not set down in his word the degrees of transgression against the covenant of works; some in Adam might have been more, some less grievous transgressors (should all have been saved or damned by that only covenant;) and since it cannot be denied that multitudes within the visible Church perish for their sin against the Law, or the externally proposed Covenant of grace, and yet all these so perishing are not alike guilty; our Saviour says some had greater guiltiness in his sufferings then Pilate had,