We Must Be Changed (4)

(4) Actions correspond to powers and abilities, and no holy action can come from an unchanged ability. A change in the souls faculties must precede a change in life and conduct.
In nature we live, and we have the power to move; being and moving go together. So if we have a being in grace, we have a power to move. In the life of grace and sanctification there is an ability to believe in God, to be holy, and to love God and then the actions of love spring from that power. Consider, then, the necessity of a change of the inward man, of the powers of the soul. Can the eye see without a power of seeing? Can the ear hear without a faculty of hearing? Can the soul perform sanctified actions without a sanctified power? It is impossible.
The change is especially in the will, which some would say is not touched. They would say the will is free and would give grace no more credit than necessary. But grace works upon the will most of all. For the bent and desires of the will carry the whole man with it. If the choice and bent are the right way, by the Spirit, it is good. If the will is not inclined and formed to go the best way, there is no work of grace at all. Though all grace first comes in through the understanding being enlightened, it then goes into the will, putting a new taste and relish upon the will and affections.
You see, then, that the grace in the gospel is not mere persuasion and entreaty, but a powerful work of the Spirit entering the soul and changing it and altering the inclination of the will heavenward. The soul is carried up and is shut to things below. We must have great notions of the work of grace. The Scripture has great words of it. It is an alteration, a change, a new man, a new creature, a new birth.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Glorious Freedom, pp. 105-06 [115-16]
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