There have been many shifts in the sands of theological issues and terminology since the days of Fuller, Rushton, and Joseph Hussey, but the basic issues remain the same.

In his Defense of Particular Redemption, William Rushton expressed the truth, that to be clear on the doctrine of election -and the atonement, is more important than preaching the gospel; that is, we must first understand the foundation principles of the good news;-then may follow the proper manner of presenting that good news.

The erroneous and unscriptural teaching of a universal atonement by the sacrifice of Christ, inevitably leads to the equally erroneous proclamation of a universal offer of salvation. The vital issue, then, still remains, namely, Did Christ make atonement for the sins of the human race? Is the good news or gospel, to be preached as a means to secure eternally the subjects of that universal atonement? Was the utility or purpose of the gospel to "save" all the lost, or to "call out" or convert only the redeemed elect?

The so-called free-offer system was another by-product of the doctrine of universal atonement. It was the manner of preaching adapted by those men who not only believed that Christ died to save all men, but also that men by nature, possess a free-will ability whereby they may "accept or reject" the proposed "offer" of the good news.

The burden of Mr. Hussey's arguments is primarily to refute the uscriptural and Christ-dishonoring system of "free offers" indiscriminately addressed to all alike. It is truly a blasphemous presentation of Christ's "finished" redemption, offered to all who will make it effectual by their acceptance of the proposed offer! The reader will note that Mr. Hussey's arguments against free-offers of grace, are well undergirded with the scriptures of truth, especially those touching depravity of the human will, election, effectual calling, and the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration or the new birth. The author pauses to ask this pointed question: "Therefore why do you not look to bring the form of preaching to God's work, than to bring down the power of God's work to your form of preaching?"

We must face the fact that now in our times, nearly all of "Christendom" is no longer concerned with the foundation doctrine of election and particular redemption. The chief concern is for the best operational "methods" to bring the most members into their system. The chief motive in the religious world is not to honor and exalt Christ and His grace, but rather to advance a religious organization, often called "Christian Evangelism."

This old writing, will therefore be of interest to those only who still have some respect and concern for "the truth as it is in Jesus" and for "all the counsel of God." It is to you, the following pages are again presented, for your confirmation and establishment in the truth. Having been written nearly three hundred years ago, you will find the style of expression somewhat different than now used. This, however, in many respects is refreshing and to the point. Once the reader gets the author's trend of thought and expression, he will be well rewarded.

If it be God's will, may it please Him to use it "in stirring up some "pure minds" on this important matter.

When Jesus stood and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink," He no more invited the thirsty, than He invited the light when He said, Let there be light. In the first place there is not a soul -on the earth that does or can thirst for the living waters which flow from Him, until He quickens it, and makes it thirst, and when made to feel its thirst, and even when the tongue faileth for thirst, it can no more approach the living fountain than it can make a world, until Jesus applies, not the invitation, but the word, "Come unto Me." His words are spirit and they are life; and His sheep hear them, and they know His voice, and they follow Him; because they have no power or even disposition to resist their Shepherd's voice. The calling of the saints is nowhere in the scriptures denominated an invitation. He calleth His -own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. If he only invited them they would have to get out themselves, or stay behind. But when he calls, the dead hear His voice, (not His invitationj and they that hear shall live. How would it suit the condition of a poor, lost, helpless soul, one that feels his poverty, inability and impotence, to read the word thus: The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall be invited to live, and they who accept the invitation shall live. And when He inviteth forth His own sheep He goeth before them, provided they accept the invitation. It is perfectly in keeping with every feature of Arminianism for workmongers to talk of invitations of the gospel, because the very term implies the willing and the doing power to be in the creature. But it is neither in harmony with the doctrine of experience of the saints of God to so speak of His communications to them as to imply that He has yielded up the government to them; that He has hinged the effect and result of His communications on their will instead of His own will. It is derogatory to His character, it reflects on His wisdom, power, and grace.

Having met with very gracious dealings from my God, in carrying me through ,a.large tract* formerly published, and in blessing the publication of it to many souls, whose savory testimonies, from their own experience of these things, do witness for me. And since there are but very few copies unsold, my heart has been again drawn forth to publish this work also.

This piece, therefore, so far as the Lord hath shown me, is written to set forth some part of the doctrine of the Gospel in a light clearer than either nature or human education can possibly do. To expose and beat down the empty notion of offers of grace, tenders and proposals of grace and Christ to sinners.

Doth this sound harsh in your ears? What makes it so? If you do not know, read the Treatise and then j udge, whether the weight is to be laid upon the free grace of God in Christ to sinners; or upon offers, tenders, and proposals of grace to sinners. And you will see that the free grace of God in Christ is far more effectual than proposals, and perhaps far more glorious than ever you thought on.

But there are some among us who say they do not love controversy. It may be so; difficulties and unbelief in doctrines make them controversial. These, therefore, ought to be cleared. He that believes only, what was never controverted, believes, perhaps, in effect, little more than that the sun shines, or the rain falls; he is something of a naturalist and perhaps that is all. If he has taken up anything of religion, he took it upon outward trust, without any inward trial. What a man is convinced he sees, controversy ceases respecting that thing. Till your soul beholds a thing, you doubt whether it be true or false; as it becomes your faith, doubts will vanish. You live by it, and have done prating.

Debates are swallowed up when Gospel evidence comes. But still you say you do not love controversy! It is very hard to beat men off from hanging upon this string. Well, pray what is it you do love? Do you love the shop? Do you love to buy and sell? Take heed; that is all controversy: one thinks the article worth so much, another says it is worth so much; and here they raise a controversy. The buyer is sometimes controverting the price before he can be brought up to the seller's charge; and the seller is controverting it, and giving whole lengths of words, before he sells you one inch of matter, or can be brought down to the terms of his chapman.

Besides, what love have you for your estates? What value have you for your rights and property in this world? Are these never controverted? When they are called in question, and your rights invaded, do you defend your rights, and give fees to a lawyer, and stand a trial of the cause with your adversary, and that at a far greater charge than the price of such a book as this? Is not this controversy? You will go on nevertheless; saying, you are in the right, you will have a trial; you will not be duped. Yet how suddenly does the name of a controversy run you off from looking into the things of God? how tamely do you give up your rights for fear of religious controversies? Put God's children's right to Christ, and the kingdom of heaven, upon trial, and how easily Satan and corruption run them off from discoveries of their right to the best things, though they have any interest in them. What think you of God's Book? Is there no controversy in that? Why do you buy a Bible with the book of Job in it? That book is a controversy between him and his three friends: and, perhaps, you have not skill enough to tell me which of them was in the right.

Let me conclude in a word. What is it that is not a controversy? Do you give one thing that is good, for any thing that is not so? How can you be against controversies, when God is for them, Christ is for them, and His Spirit is for them? The book of Job is a controversy between man and man. The whole Bible is a controversy between God and the sinner, Christ and Antichrist, the Spirit and the world: yea, it is all controversy between God and good men in their faults. Everything that strikes at a man's faults, as this Book does, is a controversy between God and sin.

Therefore I now leave all for perusal in your hands, reader, with the blessing of the Lord of Hosts, Who fills the hungry with good things, but the rich He sends empty away.

Brethren,

Grace, mercy, and peace, be with you, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. My heart is stirred up to write a few things to you, of the truth as it is in Jesus; which truth, you are called by Him to hold forth to others. What cause have you to thank Christ Jesus our Lord in that He has counted you faithful, putting you into the ministry? Such of you who -are poor and despised, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations. Such of you who are learned, as to what men call learning, rejoice in this, that you have learned Christ: Christ is more learned than any, and so are they that learn of Him. Though He teaches not the arts and sciences in His ministers, yet you are ministers in better things, in things of a Gospel revelation.

As my ministry was to be of Christ, and not of myself, therefore His grace has been sufficient for me. When one temptation had blown over, another beat upon my soul. That was respecting my own insufficiency to keep off from the Arminianism of my natural mind, without which all Calvinism and Orthodoxy is but form and notion: I felt that the power of grace was necessary to possess and fill up, in the soul, all sound notions of it. Without this vital principle, all orthodoxy or dry doctrine is but a dead burden.

The occasion of this mischief was owing to my laboring to varnish my faith with human testimonies; and I did it not as some do, who think they come off well when they have quoted two or three authors; but I thought I came off poorly if I did not quote a whole string of the Fathers; such as the two Clements, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Tatian, Maximus, Tertullian, Hippolitus, Origen, Ammonius, Minutius Foelix, Novatian, Gregory, Cyprian, Victorinus, Arnoblus, Iactantius, Eusebius, Athanasius, Didymus, Hilary, Titus Bostrensis, Cyril, Optatus, Ambrose, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome, Epiphanius, Ruffinus, Chrysostom, Auz, and I do not know how many more.

Alas! upon search I found them deceivers, in comparison of the Scriptures themselves, like Job's summer brooks, that deceive the thirsty traveller. And, truly, brethren, having tried human testimonies as much as most of you, give me leave to say, it is a very pernicious practice, and only serves to bring down the wrath of God upon unsanctified pens.

The value of all such things vanished with me, when the Lord led me into an experimental knowledge of Himself, the everlasting love of the Father, and the operations of the Spirit of my own soul. This sweetly removed the fears of my insufficiency for the ministry, and rebuked the temptation which had held me from going on in the work of Christ; taught me to keep off from Arminianism, that too naturally runs through the labors of some. This also calmed the storm raised up my mind in departing from human testimonies, and helped me to wade through difficulties where no author had ferried over!

The fruit of my labors in the following piece, I therefore dedicate and present to you, hoping the Lord may use it to instruct, or strengthen you in His own work: if He does, you will bless God in Christ for His Word of Truth, which excels all human writings. Therefore covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show I unto you a more excellent way; which, that you may obtain and receive, is the hope and prayer of,

The order of this writing will consist principally of three points. 1 Concerning offers of grace; 2. Concerning inviting sinners to come to Christ; and 3. Concerning exhorting sinners to come to Christ. And however I may mostly insist upon the first branch of these three already laid down, yet to rectify the mistaken notion about offers of grace, and to advance the true doctrine of free grace operations, working on the elect of God, I shall likewise add something briefly, belonging to the other two branches. To begin by laying down the method of handling the first, viz. the offers of grace and salvation.

I. To show how men state their offers of Christ, as to the name and the thing.

II. To disprove them, and overthrow their scheme, as anti-evangelical, and that by manifesting three principal points,

1. That to offer Christ to sinners is not to preach Christ to sinners;

2. That to propound such offer in the external means, is no means of the Spirit's working an internal ability in sinners to close savingly with the offer;

3. That to suggest an offer of Christ and a gift of Christ to be both one thing is a barefaced error.

III. To resolve the puzzling question, How then must we preach the gospel to sinners, if we do not propound an offer of salvation to them? In resolving which, proffers of grace, offers of Christ, tenders of salvation, etc. will be withstood -and overthrown, as unscriptural and powerless forms of words.

IV. To reply to the misadapting many texts of Scripture that are commonly mistaken on this argument.

V. Lastly, to make a further reply to the more common and current pleas, used by weak men, for want of better arguments.

To show how they state the doctrine of the offer.

How conceited must men be of their own wisdom, who, notwithstanding they have so little to say in behalf of these phrases, are resolved to keep them up. If no more could be said, it is enough to make poor humble souls reject such expressions; at least such of them who are sensible that these men's mouths are not filled with Gospel sweetness, or they would have discovered by the opening their mouths, that the Lord Christ had filled them. Now if men find as great a sweetness in phrases of human invention, and in defence of them, as they find in the Holy Ghost's language of the Bible, it is a sign they do not open their mouths wide, and that Christ does not fill them. There are scriptural expressions enough to fill a man's mouth, when he preaches the Gospel, so that he shall have no need to use phrases, into which the tongues of so many false preachers have been dipped.

2. They have distributed the meaning of their terms into different classes. By which it seems, they do not all speak with one mind, though they speak with one mouth; professing to glorify God and to save men by offers of Gospel grace, or by the proposals of the Gospel, or by the tenders of salvation made to them, in this their supposed way of preaching the Gospel. Some have looked upon these terms to be general redemption offers. And indeed men may easily see that without general offers of grace they preach consistent enough with general redemption doctrines, though without general redemption doctrines they cannot preach consistent with general offers of grace.

Moreover, what they call universal grace offers, or universal proposals, and tenders of grace to sinners, are the same things, while these general men strive to keep up a consistency in their notions of universal philanthropy towards every individual soul of mankind.

Such persons are understood to be free-will offerers, who ascribe an indifference in the balance of the will, to poise its inclination equally towards accepting or rejecting the offers of grace. And as they admit a methodical offer of grace, necessary for conveying the grace of God, upon the supposition of a free balance of self-power, to determine and incline the will to accept of God's salvation, they must then suppose a balance towards the grace admitted, so far as their supposed offers, or tenders of grace go to that soul who receives them.

Such free-willers and professors of grace, according to their own principles, are consistent enough with themselves. The great difficulty is, how to bring some men holding our principles to be consistent with themselves. Some have set off with conditional offers, with conditional proposals, and with conditional tenders. That is, you shall enjoy heaven and salvation, if you will repent and believe, and perform sincere obedience to the -conditions of a gospelized law. And thus the Neonomians interwove a coarse thread of Popery, out of which the terms of new law and conditions first arose, as I have observed, (by tracing the Popish writings extant through a long series of ages) as it runs through all the fine cloth they make up for heaven, spun out of other men's bowels, such as donations, reformation of manners, sincere obedience, etc. But how short is this of the fine linen, white and clean, and the white raiment, which is the imputed righteousness of God, to be put upon the unrighteous, and thereby made the righteousness of saints, as the Holy Spirit calls it, Rev. 19:8.

Another sort of men, who strictly seem to renounce all the three kinds, do yet stand up very resolutely to maintain a fourth sort of offers; which they would fain persuade us are free offers, effectual offers, obligatory offers; and all of them, to be sure, evangelical and ministerial grace offers.

Whatever these may be, yet they have never once attempted to demonstrate what is the nature of an evangelical or ministerial offer, that is free and effectual in the hands of him that ministers the offers; except what partakes with the other three kinds, namely universal grace, free will, and conditional acceptance of the offer. Strange notions about Gospel-offers, professedly separate from the other three, and yet to keep up the very being of them by mingling with the others.

Besides, all the other three are called evangelical tenders as well as this, and under that denomination are, by one or another, made to be the ministerial offer.

For their sakes principally who fall into this evil, through inadvertence, I have been made willing to write this small Treatise.

As for a fourth sort of proposals and offers of grace to sinners, it is, without doubt, a non-entity in point of distinction from the other three. For, indeed, in setting the bias, whatever the pretence about principle and inclination may be, it is already fixed, that with all velocity the bowl runs to the Arminian side; and the truth is, it is impossible for fallen nature to keep against nature's bias in favor of free grace, notwithstanding you may bring in the brave sound of free offers, and grace offers, etc.

But still in -a further stating of the matter it must be shown negatively, what men do not mean by these offers, and proposals of grace to sinners; and positively, what they do mean likewise by the same.

I. Negatively, to show what they do not mean by them.

1. By the offers of grace and offers of Christ to sinners, they do not mean that the doctrine of grace, of Christ, and of salvation ought to be preached to Jews and Pagans, if there were such in our assemblies.

If such kind of people were now to attend in our assemblies, yet who, that has received the common doctrine of the Gospel would dare say that the said doctrine of grace was not to be preached unto them, according to the precedent in which the apostles did it. Here then we all agree without dispute, in one and the same affirmative.

2. By offers of grace to sinners, these profferers of it are not satisfied to acknowledge they mean preaching the doctrines of imputed righteousness, justification without the deeds of the law to contemners and refusers of the said doctrines of grace, and doctrines of Christ. For here again, we do all agree, that the said doctrines are and ought to be preached to all despisers and neglecters, and ought to be preached to all men, though particular truths are rejected by them.

3. By offers of grace, proffers of Christ, or tenders of salvation, the tenderer thinks it not enough to mean that the mere doctrines of salvation in the letter to be held forth to the whole unregenerate part of his auditory. For none of us ever denied this particular.

II. Now positively, and more directly, to show how men do state their meaning touching offers of grace.

1. By offers of grace, tenders of Christ, and of salvation to sinners, they must mean by these terms, the grace itself, the salvation itself; that is to say, a true and saving interest in Christ, is by them made into an offer; so that by accepting your offers and improving the means of grace men may be saved. This is the thing which you offerers do mean by your preaching. But this continued error of the day, I do now oppose for the honor of the Lord the Spirit and His works, notwithstanding so many specious books have been written of the offers of grace; yea and must, through help obtained of the Lord, both oppose and disprove of them.

I know a work of this nature will be to the glory of free grace, not in show, but in substance; and will pull down notions of men that walk in a vain show, by propounding their offers of the free grace of God, as they term it.

Here may be a discovery by the nature of the offer, proponded and laid before sinners, that it is not preaching the Gospel; much less is it -preaching the true, inner free grace of the Gospel that saves. For though the bulk of matter and method in a -discourse may be propounded, with arguments brought to convince the rational judgment, by the outer face or letter of the Word, in doctrine and argument, yet it is but the exercise of common gifts unsanctified by the Holy Spirit. As to salvation in the hidden wisdom or power of the doctrine, as to the true saving grace of the Gospel, there can be no propounding of that. It is all laid transcendently out of their reach, in the upper streams of love, beyond proposals and tenders; so that it flows out of the heart of God alone, and is plenteously shed forth upon all the elect, in the gift of the Holy Spirit and His graces from God the Father, through Jesus Christ, under the preaching of the Gospel of glad tidings, without which effusion of grace, none ever did, none ever can partake of salvation.

2. By offers of grace, tenders and proffers of salvation, it is evident, men do thereby imply that free grace and full salvation is propounded, tendered, and offered to all sinners within the sound. Or why do they make the tender of salvation for acceptance to all that hear, but to imply thereby, that all who hear may be saved.

This they call preaching the Gospel; and this conduct too, in some who, declaring against general redemption, bring themselves in self-condemned. Therefore this idolatrous offer must be struck at, and opposed by the ark, till it fall down; for it cannot stand before the Gospel, in point of power and operation.

God the Spirit is sweetly displayed by the pure Gospel as the free workers of the operations in effectual grace; but mere offers shall tumble as Dagon before the ark; and be shamefully handled too, in being cut off to the very stumps.

By offers of grace, men urge that salvation itself, as well as the doctrine of salvation, tendered to all sinners in our assemblies indiscriminately, is a work of the ministry: and if this be not done, that is, if we do not offer salvation to all within the sound of our doctrine, according to them, we do not take heed to fulfil our ministry, which we have received in the Lord.

And further, this omission by some is condemned in the ministers of Christ, as the tenth Antinomian error, namely, that if they preach or assert as follows, "That ministers of the Gospel ought not to offer salvation unto all those whom God calls them to preach; but that they should seriously invite men to improve the means of grace that they may be saved; assuring them, in the way of their ministerial duty, of the salvation of all such as believe in Christ; yet because some want ability to close with the offer, all shall not be saved." And then the antithesis or opposition to what they call the error, is this, "That though men want ability to believe savingly, yet it is the duty of Gospel ministers to make the offer, and testify unto them, that whoever believes and repents shall be saved. And that it is the people's duty to make use of their natural faculties, with such external means and workings which the Spirit of God affords them, that they may believe, repent, and be saved." (Declaration of the Congregational Ministers in and about London, against Antinomian Errors," pp. 41, 42.)

Here is now the true state of the matter, faithfully represented on both sides. But are there none of the honest, zealous, and mistaken brethren who easily discern the feebleness of the plea? As if the all, or any of the all, who shall not be saved, could improve the means of grace, that they may be saved! Was ever anything more weakly expressed among men, who glory in their profession of being congregational or orthodox?

And again, as if grace might be put off, with the bare offer in a proposition; for instance, that whosoever believes and repents shall be saved.

Is not this a piece of robbery against the Holy Spirit, or, in effect, denying His effectual operations of grace, while they make an external show of the offer of grace?

Does not the plea confine the operations of the Holy Spirit to common and external workings? Wherein does your plea give Jehovah the Spirit His due honor in the internal and mighty workings of His grace on sinner's hearts. that sinners may believe, repent, and be saved? I therefore conclude that our brethren, looking upon their plea to a poor fortification for their offers of grace to sinners, will undertake to mend it.

Sinners are nowadays addressed as follows: "Christ has died for you. Salvation is all finished. All you have to do is
come." A strange method, truly, of prophesying to the dead! "All finished," and yet something left for the sinner to do!
"All finished," yet the redeemed left to do that very thing of which Jesus said, "No man can come to Me, except the
Father which hath sent Me draw him"' Divorce Christ's dying words from their historic connection, and a theological
chaos will be the sure result. -James M. Sangar
(From "The Redeemed: Who Are They?")

Do you look, Sirs, upon your free offers of grace,-as you call them-to be preaching the gospel? Yes, you will say, we look upon these to be both one and the same. That is, we look upon it, that though preaching of Christ to sinners is not offering of Christ to them, yet every free offer of Christ to sinners is preaching the salvation of Christ to them. Do you so? then I tell you that offers of salvation are things that fall far short of preaching the Gospel; and a thing that falls far shorter than preaching the salvation of the Gospel unto sinners. For observe, the power of the Gospel attends preaching the Gospel, and salvation attends the preaching of salvation. But neither the power of the Gospel, nor salvation, attend the offer as they attend the preaching of the Gospel.

But here I shall begin my disproof of their vain scheme, and enter upon an overthrow of their doctrine of the offer, as an anti-evangelical form of corrupting the Word of God; being the first thesis of three laid down about offers; and prove from God's Word that to propound the offer of salvation to sinners, as it is an unscriptural thing, so it is not preaching the salvation of the Gospel unto sinners.

1. I argue from the practice of the apostles . Their practice was to preach Christ, not to offer Him The apostles preached the word of the Lord everywhere, in every city, and in every province, whither they came, (Acts 15:36) as well as at Thessalonica and Berea. (Acts 17:33) But they nowhere tendered or offered the salvation of that word.

2. From their ordination to the said practice. Paul was ordained a preacher, (1 Tim. 2:7, 2 Tim. 1:11) and not ordained a propounder of the offer. He was to keep to free preaching; and not to warp, as men do in our times, to a free proposal.

3. From instances of preachers. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. (2 Peter 2:5) The Holy Spirit does not say, Noah was a free propounder of righteousness; that is, a poor low, earthly thing, that would degenerate the preaching of the Gospel into nothing. Nothing of the true glory of the Gospel appears, in it; therefore the Holy Spirit will not so much as give it a good name, or enroll it in His book. Paul likewise was a teacher of the Gentiles, (2 Tim. 1:11) not a tenderer of salvation to the Gentiles. For this latter custom comes by men's conversation with fleshly wisdom, and not by the grace of God. Solomon was an admirable ecclesiastic, or preacher, a preacher that was wise, (Ecc. 1:2) and a preacher that sought to find out acceptable words. (Ecc. 12:8) 1 the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. (Ecc. 1: 12) Here he is altogether the preacher, and not once the propounder of an offer.

4. From the defect of the poor opinion about offers. One things it lacks, and that is, text to prove that proffering and preacher are, in the sense of the Holy Spirit, the same thing. The coincidence supposed can never be maintained. The apostle was not careful to ask how they should offer, but how they should preach, except they were sent. (Rom. 10:14) Christ's person and doctrine may be both preached, whether in pretense, as sound, orthodox notion, or in truth, of power and experience, as the apostle says, (Phil. 1:18) yet Christ is preached, says he. But how Christ can be offered the Scriptures assists no man to make out; for there the Holy Spirit is silent.

5. From the flattery,of offerers, undertaking to work persuasion, and from thence I argue the faithfulness -of preaching. An offer entices a natural man to a conceit of self-ability, even though the tenderer should assure him he hath none. So that propounding the offer of Christ is a flattery. The offer of salvation must be with word, enticing to the ears of natural men. But on the other hand, preaching Christ is not done with enticing words of man's wisdom. If preaching carries not the cause by faithfulness, offers gain none of its ground by creature-flattery.

Offering consists in the doctrine or notion of salvation, in mere sound, being brought to a sinner's ears, and set down against him in so many words, which in all this the speaker falls short of preaching the Gospel, and so fails in his enterprize. The nature of an offer at most is distant; it is not a man's, unless he accept it. The tenderer indeed, may as we say alloquy, in appearance, speak home to us: but, alas! at the bottom it is no such thing, because the tender doth not come home, it not being accepted.

But preaching goes home in the hand and power of the Blessed Spirit, working an acceptance in the soul of the doctrine, or of the salvation, or of both, according as the sinners who hear it are wholly or partially wrought on: consequently, offering is not preaching the Gospel. The nature of that is otherwise; for as preaching the Gospel of God is preaching glad tidings to sinners, so it is bringing the good news home unto the persons; not laying it down before the sinner, and there leaving it, at midway-block.

An offer doth not bring comfort home. Grace offers may move, but it is at a distance from the proper object.

The doctrine alone preached is a home-testimony, even to the non-elect; the doctrine and salvation both together, are home-testimonies to the elect of God.

Offers I know will leave them to debate upon it, but for,all that I have observed offerers of the grace of God, as we, call them, are blessed with poor success; but preaching will bring an a answer from the conscience presently.

Oh how did it enrage the Jews at Antioch to contradict and blaspheme! when the apostles preached, it nettled them immediately, (Acts 13:45) for when Paul preached Jesus and the resurrection, (Acts 17:18), it presently touched the philosophers of Epicurus and the Stoics to the quick, and stirred up their wisdom to encounter him.

If he had stood offering them terms, they would only have laughed him to scorn, and thought it not worth while to have argued with him: but his preaching set them upon a philosophical prating; in the account given of their opposition, it was not that Paul propounded the offer, but he was, as they thought, a teller, or celebrater, as the word in Greek signifies, of strange gods. How ignorant and prejudiced were they! They took the resurrection to be one god, and Jesus to be the other!

Preaching is a home-act, the doctrine preached reaches men's consciences, let them do what they will. Noah's preaching in his day went home to the disobedient spirits, who, in the apostle's days, long after were in the prison of hell. (I Pet. 3:19) The doctrine of preservation in the ark was preached, it was not offered.

Again, the ark was built for Noah and his house; It was not prepared for, nor tendered to the old world. Thus the open rejecters of the mystery find preaching of Christ to be a home-act, it stirs up their corruptions.

Furthermore, there are others of the non-elect who do not reject the doctrine of Christ, but receive it in the lump, when the doctrine is preached to them. Thus Simon Magus believed at Philip's preaching Christ in Samaria, (Acts 8:13) and the stony-ground hearers that first sprung up were brought to it by sowing the seed of the Word upon them, and afterwards they withered away. (Matt. 13:5, 6) To these may be added, the hard-hearted Israelites in the wilderness, who, it is said, (Heb. 4:2) had the Gospel preached unto them; but the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. The Holy Spirit would, according to the counsel of God, give them the Word but it was not His good pleasure to bestow faith of the operation of God with the Word; nor was he bound thereto in God's covenant and promise. So likewise the Gospel of Canaan's rest had been preached home to them, verse 6, for it appears by their story in the wilderness, that they did many things, as the fruits of that preaching: with an external faith they received the Gospel preached in its types. Then believed they His words; they sung His praise; but they soon forgot His works. They waited not for His counsel. And so the people to whom the type of the Gospel-rest was preached, entered not in, because of unbelief, at last. Thus the Gospel comes with a home-appeal to the consciences of the non-elect, a home testimony in preaching the doctrine to them that receive the doctrine preached, though they are not the chosen of God. The preaching lays hold, and by a common operation of the Spirit, worketh a common faith in the non-elect. And as a fruit of it they make a profession of the same: however, they receive it not in a new nature, in which not only the doctrine, but the power of the salvation, comes to God's chosen. The others receive It not as a distinguishing work of the Spirit of grace, who is the substance of it, as well as the worker of it.

2. The doctrine of the Gospel preached, is a home-act to the elect of God. The doctrine may sometimes be received by preaching, before the power of salvation of that doctrine be received according to the election of grace by another act of preaching. Observe these two; doctrine and power may be separated in the elect themselves for some time.

And we may perceive this, because the elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, are saved and called with a holy calling, under one Word of Truth, as of His own will begat He us, but are not begotten a second time under another Word of Truth; though, perhaps, as the Spirit will, at other times He severally distributes His gifts. (1 Cor. 12: 11) This also cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. Therefore, I say, we may suppose a separation of these sometimes, viz., doctrine and salvation, as to the elect for a time. Moreover, brethren, I -declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein ye stand. (1 Cor. 15) It was applied, and went home in preaching the Gospel unto them, in that they had received the doctrine, and stood therein. For the salvation is clearly distinguished in the next words; by which the Gospel preached unto you, and received by you; also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory, or hold fast the doctrine from a principle of grace, what I preached unto you: unless ye have believed in vain; i. e. in vain as to salvation, if you have, only received the doctrine in the letter, without receiving the power, or a change of nature with the doctrine; or you have only received the doctrine with an outer court faith, if you have received it without a change.

Again, ver. 12. Christ was preached, that He rose from the dead; and this was plainly brought home. For, through the Spirit, preaching had produced faith; there being no more reason to question the truth of the doctrine, than to doubt the preaching of the doctrine. Both are alike coupled, verse 14 so that the nature of preaching is to go home in the power Of it, till it arrive at the person's conscience; and not to parley, by suspensions of the will, or nonacceptance of the sinner, in mid-way, as your offers do.

Preaching sticks not in the thick clay of human proposals, nor loses its errand in propounding an offer, by any difficulties in the way whatever, through which it passes.

For though offers be never so free, and indeed ministers are too free of them to thrive in their ministry, yet give me powerful preaching, for that God hath ordained; it makes its way through, before all your free offers whatever. An offer, though you call it evangelical and ministerial, or what you will, yet performs nothing where it is not accepted.

Your free offer is very indeterminate, and yet pretended to be in the Lord's name too, while the Lord knows them that are His. Moreover, your offer of salvation is universal; for you so offer salvation, as it is plain you exclude none from salvation. You offer salvation to the lump; yet know, that your offer of the salvation can never reach home to all that God calls you to preach to, as, preaching the doctrine does. Your obligatory offer is as wide as the rest.

To proceed and prove, as the Scriptures have shown us the effect of preaching, to prove that preaching the Gospel, and offering the Gospel, are not one and the same thing, according to the mind of Christ:

proofs of this: Acts 10:42. And He commanded us to preach unto the people. Acts 2:20. And He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you. Acts 17:3. This Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. He is the Messiah, of whom the Old Testament speaketh. Acts 8:5. Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. Acts 13:38. Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. Hence Paul's anathema in the same style of preaching, and in the same manner of wording it, by which we know the meaning to be quite another thing than that of an offer: Gal. 1:8, 9. Though we apostles, or an angel from heaven, preach unto you any other doctrine than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other Gospel unto you, etc. In all these places it is expressed that preaching applies directly unto persons: but proposals are things that are only put before persons, as the word signifies.

Offers are bringing the things, and leaving them at a distance over against them, which wait for acceptance before the things proposed or offered can approach unto them, or be approached unto. But preaching, whether of life unto life, or death unto death, approaches effectually to persons consciences in the assembly therefore it is a home-act, and makes a thorough motion to them.

The Holy Spirit tells us so of preaching; men, in order to excuse their hypocrisy, tell us so of offers. Preaching the Gospel testifies on God's behalf, and exalts the Triune Lord in all his persons; the Lord the Father, the Lord the Word, the Lord the Spirit. The testimony of preaching justifies God, in condemning refusers of the doctrine, as well as justifies God in condemning men who, though they accept of the doctrine in a Christ-less state, yet walk unworthy of the very form of that sound doctrine in the unregeneracy of their natures, having secret enmity in their hearts ,against the power of godliness.

The testimony of preaching likewise justifies God, in holding forth the spirit of grace, as the quickening principle for acceptance, wherewith to receive the salvation of Christ, -as well as to receive the doctrine of it; for God gives
His Spirit as the life-giving principle to work in all His ownelect. Now the offer of the Gospel because it is not preaching
the Gospel, does not justify God in the condemnation of one, or salvation -of another; but seems rather to
justify the creature's acceptance of what the elect by gift shall inherit, who are saved by the Gospel.

Acceptance of the Gospel is a piece of the Gospel wrought in the soul by Jehovah the Spirit, which your tenderers of salvation, every man of you, either overlook or deny.

Offers lay all down for acceptance at mid-way block, and never get farther. Whatever it be that is offered, doctrine or salvation, before the elect, or before the non-elect, or before all promiscuously, there it sticks in midway, waiting for free will to accept of your free offer.

2. By preaching, the doctrine is carried home to the elect of God, personally discriminating part of the hearers. So Christ, who is salvation, may be personally preached; but how can He be personally offered? The Holy Spirit's language is He is the Word, which by the Gospel is preached unto you, 1 Pet. 1:25. As in Acts 20:7, the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them the Gospel. So Acts 8:35, it is said of the eunuch, Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same Scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. Here preaching was a home-act to the good of His chosen. It reached quite through, and stuck not at mid-way.

Offers exalt not the sovereignty of God in the congregation, nor are they suitable to it. Preaching the Gospel is suitable thereto. Therefore, preaching and offering are not both one. All preaching the Gospel is fitted to exalt the sovereignty of God; but offering the Gospel is not fitted unto that service. How can they then be proved to be both one? Besides, if offers had exalted the sovereignty of God to the elect, then the Scripture would have spoken of them that they did so. But it nowhere speaks of them after that manner.

Offers, therefore, exalt not God's supreme will. Preaching the Gospel is preaching glad tidings in an effectual sovereign display of irresistible grace, to the Israel whom God has chosen; the blessings of the Gospel, as in Matt.5 to multitudes. But proffering the Gospel debaseth the sovereignty of God, instead of exalting it. How abject and precarious is it, in the great and glorious name of Jehovah, to stand up and say, Here sinners, I offer you Christ, why don't you take Him? Ah! this is taking God's name in vain, and perverting God's message, if the man may be called a messenger. Preaching is supreme; it breaks in upon a man's conscience by authority: offers are servile; making parleys de- the majesty of God, and so cannot be the same thing with preaching, which exalts the majesty of God.

8. Lastly,_ I argue from the efficacy of preaching, which God the Spirit savingly attends: And thence I prove, that no offer of grace did ever come up to preaching the Gospel. It is not preaching the Gospel, when it ceases to be the joyf ul sound. But it does cease to be so while the preacher sinks from operations of the Gospel by God the Spirit, into offers of the Gospel, by mere propounding of empty tidings.

Offers of grace to sinners are, therefore, disproved to be the same with the preaching of grace. For,

Letter and spirit are separable among the receivers. The spirit is preached to saints, to you excellent ones, yet, to the elected together with you; while the whole visible clutter, the letter, passeth among the rest, who are blinded, and never see the kernel.

It is an unseen thing, therefore, to the eye of the body, so cannot be offered, but must be preached to men. Salvation is the substance of Gospel- doctrine, as the kernel is of the nut, therefore cannot be tendered separate from the doctrine: nor indeed is that doctrine tendered at all, while preached; and while the salvation apart from the letter is preached to those people, who touching election are beloved.

While men, therefore, are making offers of a Christ they themselves have not experienced, let them not think it is preaching the Gospel in the salvation and glory of it.

2. Preaching the Gospel has to do with the elect of God, in order to their conversion, answerable to the settlement of their relation in Christ; and so to bring them, for the making of their calling and election sure, to an evangelical communion with Father, Son, and Spirit, by more lively and fixed faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, through the indwelling and comfortable operations of God the Spirit to this end; preaching the Gospel is mightily owned by the good Spirit of God, to change the sinner's affections, and elevate his mind to a supernatural believing and supernatural communion.

The scriptures do constantly speak of the Holy Spirit's personal work upon the soul,-in passive phrases, such as faith, love, repentance unto life. Ministers of Christ, who are put in trust with the Gospel, are to use all such wholesome words and passive phrases, which exalts the Spirit and His work, and brings a good report of the Gospel to the honor and glory of God the Spirit, in the mysteries of Christ.

And surely there never was more ground to require this from ministers than now, when believing is so slightly talked of, and pressed as if it were but a bare natural act; notwithstanding so many books have been written of the Spirit's work to explain the Scriptures upon this subject. For almost forty years long, in an eminent manner, this convincing light has been springing forth under John Owen's labors in 1674. Yet much has the Spirit been grieved by the neglect of some of the present generation. For to this day the notion of an offer of grace exists, though it is a mere conceit, adapted to feed unconverted hope; as if believing on the Lord Jesus Christ was an act of the soul, before a man be born of the Spirit.

Offers do naturally feed this conceit, and cherish it in the bosoms of unconverted men, however some cunning preachers have an artful way to shift and wrest, to make you believe they mean preaching, though they call it by this odd name, pretending that offering Christ and preaching him are both one.

3. Whereas preaching the Gospel takes hold of the heart. The reason is, because the Lord owns preaching. It is His own ordinance, and therefore an effectual means. But offers, being of human devising, they must needs prove ineffectual: for offers do not take hold of the heart.

The devil will maintain his fort a whole siege against your offers. The evil spirit in a sinner is never likely to yield, or be subdued at that rate. Jesus I know, and Paul I know, (said the evil spirit in the Acts) but who are ye? The devil hath such a strong hold in sinners, that he will leap on your offers, and laugh at them. The Gospel I know, and preaching of the Gospel I know: but these many offers and proffers, he will exclaim, what are ye, ye powerless motions?

Now consider, preachers, will you go and make proposals to Satan? The devil is to be defeated of his captives by preaching deliverance to the captives, and an effectual opening of the prison doors to them that are bound. But souls in slavery, and under the present power of the god of this world, are not to be got out of his hand by parleys; they must be translated from the power of darkness. Do not think to bring them off from the jaws of unseen destruction, by tendering an unexperienced salvation to them.

The devil in the sinner, is stronger than the sinner, or you and your offers, put you all together.

Lust in the heart, unbelief in the nature, captivity in the will, do all pinion the man, and stake him down against your offers. But the preached Gospel breaks in with power, opens the heart ' disarms unbelief, breaks the bands of the will in two, and by the arm of Jehovah the preaching is not in vain.

Offers rob the Father, and rob Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the soul and all. They rob free grace, in keeping back part of the price of salvation, that is strength to lay hold of Christ. You offer me Christ, poor creature! but why do you not offer me the Spirit, Who is my strength in Christ? Oh! how fruitless it is to speak of Christ as a free offer, and yet keep Him at a distance by thy proposals. I suppose that free -grace may not come too near the soul; that you may keep grace and the soul asunder, till the soul agrees to accept it! Yes, rather than preach grace home, you will stand and hammer the sinner, as if you had met him about business at the Exchange, and wanted to drive a bargain with him; tender Christ upon certain provisoes: thus you manage the offer, (at least some of you) as if you wanted to get rid of your son or daughter, and meant to give extraordinary encouragement to the acceptor. You will propound a free offer, provided the sinner gives up himself, wholly and without the least reserve, to Christ. Ah! but the Lord, I am sure, will never make you fruitful in converting souls at this rate. This will never do! The Spirit of Christ must show you quite another way of preaching, and bow your hearts to it likewise.

Preaching of the Gospel is so spoken of in the Holy Scriptures, with respect of efficacy, that no offer of grace can equal it; and consequently it is not the same thing.

5. Preaching the Gospel, both in Matt. 11:5 and Luke 7:22 (where the words are, the poor have the Gospel preached to them, and to the poor the Gospel is preached,) is rendered in a passive efficacy of preaching; that is, the poor are gospelized, or transformed into the very image and spirit of the Gospel. Besides, it shows us what poor are meant, even the poor in condition. Because the blind who receive their sight, and the lame Who walked, and the lepers who were cleansed, and the dead who were raised up, whom John's disciples had looked on and seen, were not figuratively and tropically blind, lame, lepers, and dead; but strictly and absolutely in condition were such.

I can say properly, a man converted by preaching is evangelized, and it comes up to the efficacy and truth of the thing, that he is so turned into the life and power of the Gospel. But if I say in the passive voice, of the other word offering, that a man is offered, it would be unscriptural nonsense.

Further, when a man comes to offer Christ, he loses his labor; for, as to him who accepts the -offer, what can you say of such a man? youu never can say such a man is offered, nor can you say he is offerized. But the man who has received the preaching, or evangelizing, he may be fitly said to be evangelized. On the other hand, if a man should say to him who hath the benefit of the offer, he is offered, and thereby mean he is converted, he would speak nonsense because it would not signify he is converted. The active, (as in the other way, of preaching) cannot be turned into the passive. He that hath the Gospel preached to him to -conversion, is preached into the image of the Gospel. But supposing a man were converted by the offer, what sense would it be to say he that accepts the offer is offered into the image of the offer? Preaching, therefore, and offering, are not the same thing.

6. Preaching the Gospel is bringing the blessing of the Gospel to be of experimental virtue, in stating of the purpose of God according to election. A man by experience knows something of the Gospel; and both hears and feels how it enters his soul, under the preaching of it. For my own part I declare, I can give no account of any good I ever got by men's offers of grace: but through grace I can speak somewhat to the praise of the Gospel of Christ, concerning what I have got by the preaching of grace.

Oh! when a minister comes, while under the taste of the blessing in his own soul, to preach Christ, he may be sure that when he comes thus to preach Christ, he shall approach to God's chosen ones, in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. (Rom. 15:29) He will not then tantalize the people of God with offers, nor talk to them of grace that waits their acceptance, but cannot enter them; whereas grace preached comes with a blessing, and entered as well as draws near. But offers bestow no benefit on the hearers; for the more they are examined, the less they prevail. Thus I have proved that offers of Christ are not preaching of Christ.

Proof of the second of the three points, namely: That to propound the grace-offer in the external means, is no means of the Spirit's working an internal ability in sinners to close savingly with the offer.

This proposition is a direct reverse, or quite contrary theme to the triumphs of the plea about offers. It is contrary to the very mending clause of their article suggested so plausibly before in favor of offers. The emendation of defects discovered in their article is this: That while the offer of Christ, say they, is propounding in the external means to sinners, the Spirit of Christ may be working an internal ability in these sinners to close in savingly with the offer. I design, if the Lord will, in this chapter, a direct confutation of this vain confidence. For it is an error vented to the dishonor of God's free grace. And it is also a corrupt principle of some men, wrongfully held to the dishonor of the Holy Spirit and His work! Now the arguments I shall bring against this false opinion, in order to pull down so specious a piece of old Adam, are such scriptural proofs of the free gift of grace, as by the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, may be carried on in this chapter. These blessed truths may be wrought up sweetly, higher and higher, till they out-top the doctrine of offers, in your low lands of a waste wilderness. And in hope that God peradventure may give men repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, a few things shall be made known, which may prove effectual of God to wound and slay the sore-plea, which is so injurious to His grace.

The Spirit comes down from heaven in the Gospel-fills it, and fills the minister's soul, and so makes it efficacious to an elect sinner in the congregation, and to the elect alone, in respect to saving knowledge; and that so feelingly and distinctly, that every one of such say, Surely it is to me! this is preached, this is brought to me!

What reason is there, then, to expect the blessing of the Gospel in offers of Christ, when indeed it is none of the means of the blessing? the Spirit is concerned in the preaching of Christ, but he is not concerned in tendering of Christ. He regards not proffers, when He reveals the arm of the Lord with power.

Proposing is no apt means in itself, as it is no appointed means to attain the end. It is preaching doctrine and salvation united, which the Holy Spirit delights to work by; that is the means pre-ordained of God, and which God takes up, and puts a divine stamp upon, graciously working therewith to the elect. And as the doctrine is to be preached to the nonelect, for other ends than salvation, (of which hereafter in a separate chapter) so neither doctrine nor salvation are means to be offered or tendered to any sinners for acceptance: but the doctrine is to be preached, even to the non-elect, for acceptance or refusal, and so is to be preached to all promiscuously.

The doctrine and salvation are both to be preached, as the joint means of faith and comfort, to the elect of God. For so long as a minister preaches the Gospel, he uses Christ's means, and these are apt means to convert souls;* but when he degenerates into offers, Christ leaves him to sound forth a dead letter.

Men Whose principles are to offer Christ, do, without doubt, presumptuously take upon them a way of dispensing the Word which Christ has never instituted. Paul's preaching the kingdom of God, (Acts 20:25) was carried on by this apt means, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God, ver. 24. Not by an unapt device of the creatures-in offering the Gospel and tendering the grace of God.

Argument 2. Proposing the offer in the external means, can be no means at all of the 'Spirit's working an internal ability in sinners to close savingly with the offer; because the Spirit Himself must be the author of an internal ability. The faculty, though sanctified, is no self-mover in the act of sanctification, but is led to Christ by God the Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit, who is the author of the internal ability, and the worker of it, is not offered, nor can be.

1. The Spirit is sent, as God's hand, stretched out through Christ in the office of Comforter. So John 14:26. It is the Comforter whom the Father will send. Also, Luke 24:49. I send the promise of my Father upon you. And in John 15:26. When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father. And again, John 16:7. If I depart I will send Him (the Comforter) unto you. This was also secretly meant in the breathings of the Old Testament; as Psalm 144:7. Send Thy hand from above; yea, Thy Christ, the man of Thy right hand, and Thy Spirit through Him. Also, Rid me, and deliver me out of great waters; that is, out of great deeps of sin and sorrows; out of sins and sufferings, from out of corrupt doctrines (that are foul waters) entertained by strangers to the truth, out of great trials for my faithful standing it out, and my not receiving them, as others do. Deliver me from the hand of strange children, that I may be neither drowned in a spirit of error, nor -persecuted for the spirit of truth, by strange or hypocritical children that believe Him not.

How sweetly is the sending of the Spirit, as well as the sending of Christ from the Father, hinted in the Old Testament? As Psalm 110:2. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out -of Zion. And it is plain that the promise was to take place, after Christ was ascended and gone to Heaven. What was that promise of the rod of his strength, to be sent after Christ was gone into Heaven, but the Holy Spirit, Who should be sent down from Heaven, to carry on Christ's government in the world, in spite of all the enemies of Christ, whether among the Jews or Gentiles? The request is, (Psa. 43:3) 0 send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me, etc. Here is Christ and the Spirit, Whom the Father was to send. For, says Christ, I am come a light into the world; and saith the apostle, speaking of Christ, The darkness is passed, and the true light now shineth.

So God's truth, joined with God's light, may well be interpreted of the Spirit, because the Spirit is Truth. These two were prayed for to be sent forth as persons, though under the similitude of qualities; because the substance of the Old Testament doctrine and types about Christ and the Spirit, ran in these two streams of similitude-light and truth. These two persons, 'Christ and the Spirit, were to be sent by the Father, to guide the soul to Mount Zion, the true church, where God's presence remains and dwells; of which literal Mount Zion was the figure; and so was the temple upon it, in times of old.

2. The Spirit is said to come (Jn. 16:7): If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you. Will not! He has a will of His own! The will of the Comforter is the will of God, because the Comforter is God; and He will not come unto you, if I go not away. Likewise John 15:26. But when He, the Comforter, is come. This is the character of Him in relation to His office-He is the One that comes.

Talk not then of sinners coming to Christ before you duly insist upon the Comforter's coming to sinners; for when He is come, saith Christ, (Jn. 16:8) He will reprove, or convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Again, ver. 13, when the Spirit of truth is come. You see, it is His office to come. Again, Acts 1:8, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.

It is a wonder to me, that while the Scriptures speak so much of the Spirit's coming to the creature, ministers should still insist so much upon the coming of the creature to Christ, without the Spirit, expressly. But What will not men do to uphold their offers and their offices, when we see they seek to turn the Holy Spirit and His operations out of place?

3. The Spirit is said to fall, (Acts 10:44) while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard the word; and Acts 8: 16, as yet He, (the Holy Spirit), was fallen upon none of them. So Acts 11: 15, and as I began to speak, says Peter, rehearsing the matter, (of which he was accused by the Jewish brethren for going in to the Gentiles,) the Holy Spirit fell on them, as on us at the beginning.

4. The Spirit, who is the author of an internal ability to close with Christ, is shed forth, (Acts 2:33) therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath shed forth this, which ye now both see and hear. He is shed on, (Tit. 3:4-6) God our Savior according to His mercy saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He shed on us abundantly, through Jesus 'Christ our Savior. He is the worker of all inward strength, faith, love, and joy, shed abroad. (Rom. 5:5) The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. Thus the Scriptures witness.

Now let me step to the use of it, and weigh it in the balance of the sanctuary. Is the Spirit sent in your offer of the Spirit, or is your offer a means of sending Him? Is He not sent in the promise? Or rather, is He not sent in evangelizing, and preaching the Father's promise, Christ's ascension to God? and His intercession there at the right hand of God, to send His Spirit? Is God's power of the Spirit stretched out through Christ by means of propounding Christ, or propounding the Spirit to the flock; or by virtue of the righteousness of God by Christ, preached, as God sent His Son by virtue of His own love freely to us, according to the preaching which has been spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets, since the world began? Does the Spirit come by means of offers of Christ, or by preaching the mission of Christ, which made way for the mission of the Spirit? Did not the Spirit's coming depend upon Christ's going to the Father? And is not the preaching of the Gospel a means of His coming still; not as means of grace offered, but as filled with Christ's presence?

Suppose a minister, in the darkness of his spirit, should say, Lo! here I offer you the Spirit; sinners, take him! Would it not be strange doctrine? And yet why not, Here I offer you the Spirit, as well as, Here I offer you Christ? For as Christ, in respect of order, is, if possible, a greater gift than the gift of the Spirit, so Christ cannot be closed with, in a saving way, without the Spirit create, or work the closing faith. The Spirit cannot come, or fall, or be shed on, to do this separately from Christ; He comes in God's gift of Christ to the soul: One cannot be without the other.

I have Christ as God's free gift, before my having the Spirit of Christ as a worker of an ability to close in with Christ; so likewise I have the Spirit, previous to my having the faith which the Spirit works in me. As none of these can be offered me, for my internal ability to receive Christ, how then is an offer of Christ, as an external means, a means of my internal ability to close in with Christ?

Argument 3. Proposing the offer in the external means, can be no means of the Spirit's working an internal ability in a sinner to close in savingly with the offer; because the Holy Spirit is the living principle of a saving ability, and He continues to work in the soul by and from Himself, both to will and to do of His own good pleasure.

Principles for my closing with Christ can never be offered to me, consistently with the Gospel; for it is in consequence of a prior interest in those principles, that I am ever brought freely to close with Christ.

I cannot have a new heart to close with Christ, but the Spirit of Christ must be the indwelling principle of that new heart, and in Him the new heart must subsist. All my springs are in Thee, says David. How can I be in the Spirit? (Rom. 8:9) live in the Spirit? (1 Pet. 4:6; Gal. 5:35) pray in the Spirit? (Eph. 6:18) How can I worship God in the Spirit, or in the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit be not my principle of life, the life of my prayers, and of my Gospel worship? then how is it to worship Him in Spirit? The meaning is evident, that to worship God in Spirit, is to worship Him in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God being the principle of worship in those who are brought to a participation of the mystery of Gospel-worship.

Therefore to worship God in Spirit, means something more than a union of soul with gross external performances. Yes; there are clear reasons against it.

2. A low conjunction with ceremonies, will never agree with so high a description of it as is given in the following text, in ver. 23 the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. Such having the Holy Spirit to be their principle -in worship, shall thereby know what they wworship. And thus having the Spirit of wisdom, and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, they have Christ, together with the Father, for the object of their Gospel-worship.

This Spirit of wisdom, the Holy Spirit, is also the Spirit of revelation of the object, as well as the Spirit in which God is rightly worshiped, and the only principle thereof. Spiritual worship does not consist in a bare soul-union with external ceremonies of the Christian religion.

3. When Spirit is joined with truth, it does not mean in Scripture phrase our spirit only, but God's Spirit. To this agree the testimonies of 1 Jn. 4:6; 1 Peter 1:22; Jn. 14:17; Jn. 16:3.

4. And we thereby plainly see when to interpret Spirit, to be the Holy Spirit. See James 2:26; 1 Cor. 6:20; 1 Car. 5: 3. The conjunction -of the Holy Spirit with our body and spirit, appears in other texts which evidently clear it. To shut it up with one instance, in 1 Thess. 5:23, about spirit, soul and body. Your whole spirit, that is, the frame and temper of your mind and soul, (which hath all the reasonable faculties, understanding, conscience, will and affection,) and body, (which consisteth of the several members) be presented blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus.

On the other hand, if they are ashamed openly to say this, nor after this manner, then why should they use themselves to say, here I offer you Christ? It is granted, that such tenders of the Spirit, or propounding such principles of the soul, as the Spirit pleases to work, would be, and is, strange doctrine, when sent along to the ears of men. And yet why may not the sound be, Come I offer you the Spirit and spiritual principles; I offer you the very ability to close with the offer, as well as I offer you Christ, and I offer you salvation? For these latter blessings, which men still pretend to offer, are the greatest of all blessings. Christ is the greatest gift of God's love. And here you see the greatest gift of God's love is to be offered and tendered to men, and yet they will not readily offer and tender you the less; namely, the saving ability itself to close with the main blessing of all? By all their twisting then, it is plain, that offering Christ to a sinner can be no means of a sinner's obtaining an ability to close with Christ upon offers .

If an offer of the inward ability, be the means of that inward ability, why are men so backward in their offers of Christ, as not to offer the ability also, and urge it home upon sinners to accept of faith, as they urge it upon them to accept of Christ? Why not? Here I tender you faith, the power of closing with Christ practically; I offer you regeneration, I reach out a heart, I tender you a will to do it.

You offer Christ to a sinner.O vain and blind man! why not the Spirit of Christ to a sinner too? If you offer a sinner privileges above nature, why do you not offer that sinner principles above nature to receive them? Surely one may as well be done as the other. Both Christ and His Spirit may be exalted: but who will say both may be offered; what! both Christ and His Spirit? Oh! it shows that offers are not the means to work an internal ability, to quicken the faculty of a soul that does savingly close with Christ, much less to become the true life of the soul afterwards. Exalting of the Father, and exalting of His Christ, are the Spirit's means of working this inward ability. For the glorious name of God the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, are to be lifted up in preaching the Gospel. These are the means. But your offers lift up nothing, except your own folly and darkness! Oh! to exalt the Spirit while preaching the Father and Christ, as the fountain of life and motion in the soul, is a means of conversion to many; but propounding the offer of I know not what, while all the glorious mysteries of God and Christ are veiled by the very tender of a mock benefit, is a means to delude many, but convert none, to strengthen none, or work the saving ability, no not in one soul.

The Spirit Himself must be the strengthening principle of my soul's faculties, as well as the author of its renovation, to cause me to act in a saving close with Christ.

For, after all, the soul's faculty renewed, is not the sinner's principle. It is but the instrument for the use and motion of grace in the Spirit's hand. The Holy Spirit Himself, by indwelling in the soul, is still the principle of life; without whose abiding influence, after He has become the author of sanctification, and renewed the human faculties, the man would relapse into a total deprivation of the habits and abilities of the new creature. Grace, as a habit or quality, could never subsist in the faculty of fallen man, separate from the Spirit who is still the principle, to maintain what He creates by a continued indwelling, and inworking.

Now are offers of Christ and salvation to the sinner, the means of working this inward ability of the sinner to close with Christ? Is not this inward strength of power wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit, quickening the faculty, and becoming the principle of its powers, and so enabling the faculty quickened, to will, to choose, and to lay hold? The Spirit maintains His hold by an indwelling abode, as well as by an inward working of power in the soul.

His first operation on the faculty, as the effect of his gracious influence, turns the soul toward Christ. The Scripture is full to this purpose: Jn. 14:17, the Spirit of truth dwelleth with you (as a person of the Godhead in the Trinity) and shall be in you; both as an official worker on the called of you, and so named the Paraclete, carrying on salvation with the Messiah, and as a principle of far clearer and stronger experience and influence in believing, as well as a principle of influence for gladness and consolation.

This, as to the principle of conversion, was the substance of that prayer in Ephraim, Jer. 31:18, last word, turn Thou me and I shall be turned, for Thou -art the Lord my God. So the absolute promise, Ezek. 36:27, 1 will put My Spirit within you. There is the Holy Spirit as the cause and worker. Ezek. 37:14, ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live. The Holy Spirit is there signified as the principle of life. And in chap. 11:19, I will put a new spirit within you. How? Why, to be sure, as an inward worker of the ability, and as the principle of the ability also. Again, 2 Cor. 1:22. He, the Spirit, is the earnest in our hearts; i. e. a principle of grace, which is of the same piece of glory. God is to use here, only in a lower measure, what He will be in a higher measure hereafter. For as God fills us with Himself, and dwells in us Himself, who is our portion; so inhabiting us more abundantly, He will be in us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; glory to be revealed in us, Rom. 8:18, and the revealer of it to be admired in all them that believe. For, as earnest money is the same species, though not of the same quantity, the full sum is to be of, which is behind; so the Spirit is given as an earnest in our hearts, God bestowing Himself upon us, through Christ, by the Spirit, in giving us of the same kind of blessedness, which He will bestow upon us with Him in Heaven. Thus, 2 John 2, the apostle speaks of the Truth's sake which dwelleth in us.

Doubtless it is one of the titles of the Holy Spirit, who is there spoken of, whom the faithful were enabled to call by the name of Truth in that daring generation of professors, who were headed by Ebion Cerinthus in their blasphemies against the Holy Spirit, and also of the Son of God. No doubt but they counted and called the indwelling of the of the Holy Spirit in the saints, as their principle of divine life, a lie. Therefore to do the Spirit honor, in the face of that formal generation, the apostle calls the Holy Spirit the Truth, and professes his love for the elect wrought on by the truth of the Gospel, and was knit to them "for the Truth's sake which dwelleth in us." Yea, it is expressly the Spirit's title, 1 Jn. 5:6. The Spirit is Truth. And 1 Jn. 4:12, God dwelleth in us.

He dwells in the believer as the principle of life, motion, and obedience to Christ. Likewise, verses 15, 16, God dwells in him that confesses Jesus is the Son of God; experience being in that erroneous day which the apostle bent his style against, esteemed fanatical and ridiculous to hold. And it cost the saints much to be faithful to 'Christ in that age: ,and, it seems, not one in that day was able to come up to this sound, holy and bold confession, that Jesus was the Son of God, unless he had God the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, the principle of the same confession. And ver. 16, He that dwelleth in love; (for in that day also the faithful were hated, for holding supernatural truths) he that dwelleth in love, therefore, of the Truth, and of them that hold it, dwelleth in God, as the principle of it, and God dwelleth in him, as his possession and heritage for ever. So 2 Tim. 1:14, The Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us, as the powerful maintainer of His own interest, and of the image of Christ in us. To which add 1 Cor. 3:16, Know ye not, that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? And how dwelleth He in you? The answer is-in you, as ye are His temples to inhabit, and as He is your principle to actuate you.

Thus the Spirit of God after sanctification and possession of the faculty, moves the faculty towards the object, both as the gracious author, and the gracious principle of the motion.

But yet still, to take in more of the bowels of the mystery, I proceed to a fourth argument.

Argument 4. The Spirit's working an internal ability in sinners, is an operation of God's grace; he works under the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the elect in Christ, according as He has chosen us in Him. How does the Spirit work faith to lay hold of Christ? Without all doubt His operation of faith and all grace is in and under the imputation of the righteousness of Christ; because of the antecedent virtue of His righteousness to appease God's justice, and remove the obstacles -in the way of God's mercy. For how can I think the Spirit works an ability to close with Christ, before Christ closeth with the sinner by the Holy Spirit. And how can Christ close with the sinner by His Spirit, except in the righteousness of God? And how can Christ close with the sinner by the Holy Spirit in the righteousness of God, unless He be under that righteousness? And then it must be under the same righteousness that He works faith for obedience to it; because it is in the virtue and use of that righteousness of God wrought in Christ, that the Spirit, or Holy Spirit, works all the ability in the heart of a sinner to close with Christ.

This ability or power is to be wrought upon us; it cannot be proffered to us. The Spirit will not, and cannot honorably work without the imputation of Christ; but offers of Christ are without a due regard of the imputation of His righteousness, or the work of the Spirit, therefore are not fit means to work this ability.

How can the working of the ability in sinners by the Spirit be expected under the pretended preaching which exalts not the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the person of a sinner, nor insists at all upon it as the comprehensive act of God's grace, wherein the operation of the Spirit is included? Would they have an internal ability without an internal worker of it? Would they have faith to come and lay hold of Christ, without an internal manager of that faith, and without an indwelling principle of strength in the soul to stay and uphold the workmanship of God against all the opposite powers of lust, darkness, unbelief, and self-love?

Now as the righteousness of God in Christ abides on a sinner, so in this righteousness abiding there is a foundation of God's free grace to justify; upon which the Spirit does not only work renewing grace, as faith, repentance, humility, watchfulness; and the whole of sanctification, as joy, comfort, stability, and perseverance therein; but the Spirit abides in the soul as the living principle of grace, dwelling there secretly, silently, surely and faithfully; even though He may at times suspend His comfortable operations, when he reproves our follies, and when He is grieved, ceasing His joyous operations and His glad witness with our spirits, thereby putting us to grief, and making our hearts sad, by the testimonies, text, and arguments, which He brings against our follies.

He changes the theme He used to insist on, and alters His voice in the Gospel into heavy tidings, which will make any new creature to be sad in heart, and full of grief and heaviness! Forasmuch then as He is the principle of this grief in the soul, He Himself is said to be grieved in the provocation of it. For which cause, He further convinceth us of the sin of grieving the Spirit in His work.

All this latitude now, which is consistent Gospel, and respects the Spirit and His work falls in with preaching of the Gospel, and preaching of the righteousness -of God, the chariot of salvation, in which He rides to take possession of the sinner's heart. But apply it to your offers, all this sinks and dies; it is lost; you bear nothing of it in your free tenders. The propounding of the offer is no external means; it is not the chariot of salvation, praise, state and honor, in which the Spirit comes to execute His office, under Christ's mediatorial righteousness.

The cause of the Spirit's working salvation is jointly the Father and the Son. The preacher then ceaseth to preach the Gospel, while by sinking into his offers, he ceases to ascribe glory to Father and Son, in the joint cause of the Spirit's operation. Now the foundation of that cause is a foreordination of the elect to salvation by an act of the Father, and redemption of the elect to that salvation by an act of the Son, and fore-operation of the Spirit upon the means of that salvation, in His applicatory work, while He is applying salvation from the Father and the Son, who have begun it, and advanced it in and by Jesus Christ. Salvation, as it is managed by the Holy Spirit, depends entirely upon the joint cause of salvation in the covenant of Father and Son, respecting what had been wrought long ago by God and Christ, for the ability of a sinner in a work of faith. This traces the work of salvation by the Holy Spirit, from the beginning thereof. The Spirit works all His works towards salvation, by the Father's pattern, and by Christ's sampler. Therefore the Spirit works them savingly on the elect alone, and in providence for the elect's sake, according to what the Father and Christ have done and purposed.

The Spirit's operation produces a new creature in the work of faith, which is called the operation of God. (Col. 2:12) Then it is the Spirit forms Christ in the soul, lets in the object of faith through the eye of faith, to fall in directly upon the new born soul, that hath this ability created in it to discern Christ: and so Christ is formed in the heart, after the manner any outward object is formed in the eye.

When I say I have such a man or object In my eye, It is not meant that the man or object is in my eye locally; that is impossible; but they are in my eye objectively-I see them. So when it is said Christ is formed in us, or Christ is in us the hope of glory; it is not to be understood that Christ, who is now corporeally at the right hand of God, is locally and substantially formed in us. No, but that Christ, Who is at the right hand of God, the substantial object of faith, is by the Spirit let in to the soul born from above; so that the soul sees Him by the eye of faith, just as he is represented in the word. So is Christ formed in us.

Neither are these, as the Quakers say we make them, two Christs, one without us and another within us; whereas they have no Christ, but call the light within them by that name. Christ is not divided; there is but one Lord Jesus Christ, and He is yet at the right hand of God, and we believe on Him as being there. Neither does Christ, formed in us, or Christ in us, the hope of glory, suppose two Christs, any more than a conception of the object; or of a man seen, supposes two objects, or two men, one in the eye, and another before the eye. It is but one object, or one man still; the conception is in the eye, and the object without the eye.

It is here also, as with the face of a man seen in water: when a man looks into the water, and sees a face there formed by reflection, which directly answers to the face formed without the water; there are not two faces, but one face represented. One face is seen, which casts its own single reflection on the water.

It is the Spirit's work, from a certain cause, to form Christ in the soul the hope of glory. He creates an eye of faith, to discern God in Christ; and thence by discerning Christ's person and righteousness, to feel a heart wrought to stoop to Christ, and the righteousness of God in Christ, and to use a hand wrought in faith to lay hold upon what is brought to the new creature, convinced of self-weakness; and to use a foot, or the new creature's ability for walking, to go or come to Christ, as the soul is ordered and trained up under divers exercises of Providence, fitted to the said motions, which by faith, through the Spirit's office, can be enabled in the said acts and motions, to discern, to stoop, to receive and lay hold of what is brought! also to go or come, and lay hold again of what is set down in the eye of the soul at a further distance. All such acts as these show that the work of grace is begun and carried on in the soul by operation of grace, and not by offers of grace.

Argument 6, and last. The true means of salvation in the hand of the Spirit, to work the ability of believing, is, by exalting the everlasting covenant of God's grace, far advanced above offers of grace. The everlasting covenant of grace Which was made by and among all the three glorious persons of Jehovah, Jehovah the Father, Jehovah the Son, and Jehovah the Spirit, upon the foundation of God's electing love, in His own supreme will and free grace. Also, the Father's gracious mission of the Holy Spirit, as Comforter, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, according to the free and everlasting covenant, neither of whom do mention the least provision made for any blessing on your offers, but do confer the blessing upon the operation of the Spirit, as provided in the covenant with Christ (Isa. 49:42) which means are evangelizing, or preaching effectual grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, as begun, advanced, and perfected by the Glorious Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nothing short of which is properly glad tidings! It is said of the Spirit, Jn. 15:26, 27, He shall testify of Christ, and ye also shall bear witness. Christ could say this to His disciples, for He knew the covenant that it should be so. But now if an offer could bear witness, yet he that hears the offer cannot from the offer bear witness. For this reason it is not provided in the covenant to be a means of conversion; neither is it provided that he who hears the offer shall bear witness; but it is provided in the covenant that he who hears the right Gospel-preaching, which exalts the witness of the Spirit, shall believe under the hearing, and bear witness of what he hears.

The Lord grant, that the Holy Spirit may teach us to preach Jesus Christ faithfully, and burn up the chaff (of which the offers of Christ are some part) with unquenchable fire, even the holy trying and refining operations of the Spirit.

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