The same reply might be given to their sense of several other scriptures brought to maintain the doctrine of preparatory works, performed by us, as necessarily inferring our obtaining the special grace of God. But I shall close this head with a few hints taken from that excellent divine before mentioned. “Man cannot prepare himself for the new birth: he hath, indeed, a subjective capacity for grace, above any other creature in the inferior world; and this is a kind of natural preparation, which other creatures have not; a capacity, in regard of the powers of the soul, though not in respect of the present disposition of them. He hath an understanding to know, and when it is enlightened, to know God’s law; a will to move and run, and when enlarged by grace, to run the ways of God’s commandments; so that he stands in an immediate capacity to receive the life of grace, upon the breath and touch of God, which a stone doth not; for in this it is necessary, that rational faculties should be put as a foundation of spiritual motions. Though the soul be thus capable, as a subject, to receive the grace of God, yet it is not therefore capable, as an agent, to prepare itself for it, or produce it. It is capable to receive the truths of God; but, as the heart is stony, it is incapable to receive the impressions of those truths. Though some things, which man may do by common grace, may be said to be preparations, yet they are not formally so; as that there is an absolute, causal connexion between such preparations, and regeneration; they are not disposing causes of grace: grace is all in a way of reception by the soul, not of action from the soul: the highest morality in the world is not necessary to the first infusion of the divine nature: if there were any thing in the subject that was the cause of it, the tenderest, and softest dispositions would be wrought upon; and the most intelligent men would soonest receive the gospel. Though we see them sometimes renewed, yet many times the roughest tempers are seized upon by grace. Though morality seems to set men at a greater nearness to the kingdom of God, yet, with all its own strength it cannot bring it into the heart, unless the Spirit open the lock: yea, sometimes it sets a man farther from the kingdom of God, as being a great enemy to the righteousness of the gospel, both imputed and inherent; and other operations upon the soul, which seem to be nearer preparations; such as convictions, &c. do not infer grace; for the heart, as a field, may be ploughed by terrors, and yet not planted with any good seed; planting and watering are preparations, but not the cause of fruit; the increase depends upon God:”[24] thus this learned author. And he also farther proves, that there is no obligation on God, by any thing that may look like a preparation in men; and adds, that if any preparations were our own, and were pure, which they are not: yet they cannot oblige God to give supernatural grace: which leads us,