disposition of heart.

Since attention to motives is not sufficient to rectify the heart, it is an argument of our need of the grace of God for that end.

These things are far from being just objections against the necessity or usefulness of the attentive consideration of motives. As it is in the use of

means that we are to seek after divine grace, so a chief mean of holiness is due attention to motives to it. Not only is such attention a chief mean of holiness, but a prevalent propensity to it is a chief part of holiness. The suitable exercise of love to God and hatred of sin, necessarily implies the actual contemplation of the motives to these holy affections. But though the consideration of motives be so very useful and necessary, there is a very great difference between that consideration of them which is joined with self-confidence and a disclaiming of dependence on divine grace, and that which is undertaken with humble dependence and earnest application for it. It is this last sort of attention to motives, that is the main scope of the proofs of their insufficiency of themselves for the great end proposed by them.

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It may not be amiss to observe, that the wickedness of hypocrites, and the many infirmities of the sincerely religious, which are frequently made objections against religion, are indeed strong confirmations of some of the chief doctrines of it. They show the power of human corruption; they show that there is not such efficacy as some imagine in the mere consideration of motives. It is certain, that not only the sincerely pious, but also hypocrites, are ofttimes employed that way. It is remarkable, that there are many severe invectives, especially in the writings of

those who oppose revealed religion, which suppose those to be the worst men in the world who are most employed in considering the motives to goodness and holiness; namely, the men whose office it is to inculcate these things on others. In the meantime, there is no ground to look on these men as of a different make from the rest of the world. And though there be a good deal of injustice and partiality in such invectives, yet is there so much truth in them as shows, that the efficacy of motives and consideration is not so great as is pretended; and that it is men's wisdom, in the diligent consideration of motives, to depend on a superior efficacy, that can make them have a due effect on the heart, and can triumph over all opposition.

Those writers who appear biassed against the doctrine of divine grace, sometimes lay down such grounds of self-diffidence as are very favourable to it, and evidently tend to prove the necessity of it. They own sometimes, in very strong terms, the necessity of distrusting the most promising good impressions. There is a remarkable passage to this purpose in the writings of a celebrated modern author, well versed in the moral writings of the ancients. His words are," But alas! the misfortune of youth, and not of youth merely, but of human nature, is such, that it is a thousand times easier to frame the highest ideas of virtue and goodness, than to practise the least part. And perhaps this is one of the chief reasons why virtue is so ill practised; because the impressions which seem so strong at first are too far relied on. We are apt to think, that what appears so fair, and strikes us so forcibly, at the first view, will surely hold with us. We launch forth into

speculation, and after a time, when we look back, and see how slowly practice comes up to it, we are the sooner led to despondency, the higher we had carried our views before." Here it is owned, that the motives to goodness may have considerable effects on men's minds, without rectifying the prevalent dispositions of their hearts; and that, without having that effect, they may strike very forcibly, and make impressions which seem at first very strong. Though such impressions of goodness as he describes, are not the easiest things in the world, he affirms that it is a thousand times more difficult to practise the least part. It is evident, that a culpable weakness or perverseness, which defeats so promising impressions, and ideas of goodness which strike so very forcibly, affords strong arguments against that self-confidence that excludes dependence on divine grace. The author affirms, that so bad success in the pursuit of goodness tends to despondency. It must, of course, tend to make men quit the pursuit. This shows how desirable, yea, how needful it is, to have so powerful a preservation against despair of success, as the prospect of those powerful aids that are sufficient for surmounting all difficulties. It may perhaps be objected, that the passages just now cited treats only of the highest degrees of goodness. But though the beginning of the passage speaks of the highest ideas of goodness, what follows about the inefficacy of the most promising impressions, seems plainly to be affirmed of the practice of goodness in general.

SECTION IV.

Of Divine supernatural Operations, and Mistakes concerning them.

THEY who duly consider the danger of extremes, especially in the concerns of religion, must observe, that there are two extremes relating to the efficacy of second causes, which have a very bad influence on men's minds, in inquiries of the greatest importance. The one is, an unreasonable propensity to imagine divine interposition in things that are really the effects of the course of nature, acting in a constant dependence on the Deity: the other is, an excessive fondness for accounting for every thing by the natural efficacy of second causes, without admitting any immediate divine interposition whatever. The first of these extremes, is ofttimes the occasion of various sorts of superstition and enthusiasm; and the other, of more direct impiety.

. Some speculative men, who set no bounds to the love of accounting for every thing, are strongly biassed against the doctrine of grace, as clashing with their favourite prejudices. They are disgusted at a doctrine which ascribes to the First Cause, a manner of operation, in producing holiness and happiness, so unsuitable, as they imagine, to his manner of operation in his other works, and to the order that obtains both in the material and intellectual world. They seem to imagine, that in all the other divine works, every thing, without exception, happens merely

according to a natural course, or according to the efficacy of second causes, operating suitably to general established laws, while the Deity only preserves these laws and the creatures governed by them. The doctrine of grace appears to these men disagreeable to reason, as interfering with the uniformity of the divine works. And whereas the efficacy of grace is sometimes termed supernatural, because it exceeds the natural energy of second causes, sometimes people annex to that word several wrong notions, which strengthen their prejudices against the thing intended by it. They seem to imagine, that supernatural operation denotes such effects, and such a manner of working, as is unsuitable to the frame of human nature; and reverses the established order of nature as to the connection between causes and effects. It is therefore to make some remarks on supernaproper tural operation, or immediate divine interposition in general, which will illustrate several important properties of the operations of grace, and show that the prejudices in view are ill founded.

It is of importance to observe, that supernatural operation does not imply a reversing of any of the established laws of nature. When people imagine all supernatural operation to be unsuitable to the perfection of the divine works, they seem to confound two things that are very different; namely, the reversing the order of the laws of nature, and changing the state or disposition of natural objects. The state or disposition of natural objects may be changed by the First Cause, without any greater alteration of the laws of nature, than when such changes are produced in any object by external second causes, and