Influences of the life of grace

1. IN order to God and his holy decree, if the Lord ordain a certain number to glory,¹ and upon that account bestow the habit of grace upon these so chosen; then God, who doth nothing in vain, when he creates powers and habits, must intend to send influences to act upon these powers and habits; as when God creates the Sun, a heavenly body, which is apt to move, to send forth heat and light, he must intend by constant law and decree to join his influences to the moving and shining of the Sun; otherwise, if he had created these heavenly bodies never to be acted upon for the sending forth of their virtues of light, heat, motion, he had created Sun and Stars in vai•: •o if the husbandman make a plough, and never make use of it for tilling the ground; and make a sickle, and never put it in act for reaping,² he must have made the plough and the sickle in vain. If the Lord pour the habit of grace and supplication upon the house of David, then have the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who have received that grace, ground of faith and hope, that the Lord shall suitably to his intended end, and begun work, bestow saving influences on them, to believe and repent, to look on him by faith whom they have pierced, and mourn over Christ ⟨p. 231⟩whom they have slain by their sins, as a man mourns and is in bitterness for his first-born, Zech. 12. 10. otherwise the Lord bestows that habit of grace in vain, which we are not to imagine of the only wise Lord, Psal. 89. 47. If the Lord pour water upon the thirsty ground, and his Spirit upon the seed of Jacob, the nature of husbandry, which joins end and means, requireth that he join to the new heart, and new spirit, influences for the growing of the seed of Jacob, as the willows by the water courses; and that he lead the trembling hand at the pen, and give influences of grace to swear and subscribe that they shall be the Lords married land, joined to him in a perpetual covenant,