(5.) The gospel-call is designed to put men upon a diligent attendance on the ordinances, as means of grace, and to leave the issue and success thereof to God, who _waits that he may be gracious_; that so his sovereignty may appear more eminently in the dispensing this privilege; and, in the mean time, assigns it as their duty to _wait for him_, chap. xxx. 18. And while we are engaged in this duty, we are to acknowledge, that we have nothing that can give us any right to this privilege. So that God might justly deny success to his ordinances. Nevertheless, if he is pleased to give us, while we are attending on them, those earnest desires of their being made effectual to our conversion and salvation, we may conclude this to be a token for good, that he designs us some special advantage thereby; and we do not know but that even this desire of grace may be the beginning of the Spirit’s saving work, and therefore an earnest of his carrying it on. (6.) When God commands persons, in the gospel, to do those things which cannot be performed without his special grace, he sometimes supposes them, when he gives forth the command, to have a principle of spiritual life and grace, which is, in effect to bid one that is made alive, to put forth living actions; which respect, more especially, the progress of grace after the work is begun; in which sense I understand those words of the apostle, _Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh; that is, hath wrought, in you both to will and to do, of his good pleasure_, Phil. ii. 12. 2. If we consider the gospel as holding forth promises of salvation, when, at the same time, it is not in our power to exercise those graces that accompany it; which gives farther occasion to those that except against the doctrine we are maintaining, to conclude, that it represents God as offering those blessings which he does not design to bestow: This may give us occasion to explain what we mean, when we consider salvation as offered in the gospel; whereby we understand nothing else but a declaration, that all who repent and believe, shall be saved; which contains a character, or description of the persons who have ground to expect this privilege: not that salvation is founded on dubious and uncertain conditions, which depend upon the power and liberty of our will; or impossible conditions; as though God should say, if man will change his own heart, and work faith, and all other graces in himself, then he will save him: but all that we mean by it is, that those graces, which are inseparably connected with salvation, are to be waited for in our attendance on all God’s ordinances, and when he is pleased to work them, then we may conclude, that we have a right to the promise of salvation. Thus concerning the gospel-call, what it is, how far it may be improved by those who are destitute of special grace, and what is God’s design in giving it: we now proceed to consider,