II. How it is to be understood to be a proper

means to bring one to carry rightly under the crook.
1. Negatively; Not as if it v/ere sufficient of itself, and as it stands alone, to produce that ef- feet. But,
2. Positively; As it is used in faith, in the faith of the gospel ; that is to say, A sinner's bare con- sidering the crook in his lot as the work of God, without any saving relation to him, will never be a way to carry rightly under it ; but having believ- ed in Jesus Christ, and so the crook as the work of God, his God, is the proper means to bring him to that desirable temper and behaviour. Many hearers mistake here. When they hear such and such law-considerations proposed for bringing them to duty, they presently imagine, that by the mere force of them, they may gain the point. And many preachers too, who, forgetting Christ and the gospel, pretend by the force of reason to make men Christians : the eyes of both being held, that they do not see the corruption of men's nature, which is such as sets the true cure above the force of reason ; all that they are sensible of, being some ill habits, which they think may be shaken off by a vigorous application of their rational faculties. To clear this matter, consider^
Firsts Is it rational to think to set fallen man, with his corrupt nature, to work the same way with innocent Adam ? That is to set begg«r6 on a
^6 The Crook in the Lot*
level with the rich, lame men to a journey with them that have limbs. Innocent Adam had a stock of gracious abilities, whereby he might have, by the force of moral considerations, brought him- self to perform duty aright. But where is that with us t 2 Cor. iii. 5. Whatever force be in them to a soul endowed with spiritual life, what force is in them, to raise the dead, such as we are ? Eph. ii. 1.
SeQondlyy The scripture is very plain on this head, shewing the indispensible necessity' of faith, Heb. xi. — And that such as unites to Christ, John