EXERCITATION II. Grace what? From it spring Election, Redemption, Vocation, Sanctification and Salvation. A caveat not to receive it in vain. It purgeth and cheereth. Glosses upon Titus ii. 11, 12. and 2 Thess. ii. 16, 17. The exaltation of free grace exhorted to. Long-suffering not exercised towards evil angels, but towards men of all sorts. It leadeth to repentance; is valued by God, and must not be slighted by us. A dreadful example of goodness despised. § 1. A second branch of God's goodness is grace, which relates to unworthiness, as the former did to misery. God is merciful to the ill-deserving, gracious to the undeserving. So far are we from being able to merit so much as the crumbs which fall from his table, that even temporal favours are all from grace. Noah was preserved in the deluge.* Why? because " he found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Jacob was enriched and had enough. How came it to pass?" because God, said he to Esau, hath dealt graciously with me.t" But beside that common favour in which all share more or less, there is a more special grace, which the Psalmist prayeth for, "remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation. +" * Gen. vi. 8. + Gen. xxxiii. 11. Psal. cvi. 5. § 2. This third is drawn throughout the whole web of salvation, and there is not a round in the ladder to heaven, which doth not give every one that steppeth upon it just occasion of crying, grace, grace. Did the Lord elect thee to life and glory, when so many were passed by? What reason can be given of this but free grace?· Paul styleth it the election of grace in his epistle to the Romans ;* and telleth his Ephesians t that God had chosen them in Christ before the foundation of the world, according to the good pleasure of his will," to the praise of the glory of his grace." Hast thou obtained redemption through the blood of Jesus? That also, saith he there, flows from the riches of his grace. Hath the Lord effectually called thee? Bow down thine head and adore free grace, as the cause thereof. For he saveth and calleth us, saith the same holy apostle, "with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace." So in the Acts, when a great number believed, and were turned to Christianity, Barnabas saw the grace of God, shining forth in their conversion. Hast thou received any abilities tending either to thine own sanctification, or to the edification of others? Do the like upon this occasion too, as Paul did, say ing, "By the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace, which was bestowed upon me was Rom. xi. 5. Ephesians i. 4, 5, 6. + Ibid. ver. 7. not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."* In a word, dost thou find in thyself any beginnings of salvation, any hopes that it shall be perfected? Remember what that great asserter of free grace hath left upon record to all posterity. "By grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."+ Remember it so, as of $3. First, to beware of receiving the grace God in vain, it being ordained for better ends, to wit, purging and cheering of such as receive it. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world." All partakers of grace should not only deny that gross ungodliness of conversation, which the very sons of morality decry and abhor; but also worldly lusts, to which others are secretly indulgent. Neither should they content themselves with a negative purity, such as that of the Pharisee was, "I am not as other men; not as this publican not an extortioner, not an adulterer,"§ (Logicians say of this particle not, that it is of a malignant nature; divines know that the malignant church is much built up by such negatives) but also practice positive holiness, by living soberly, righteously and godly, and that too in this present world: not putting on a vizard of these, as the manner of some is, on a sick-bed, or death-bed, when they can no longer look at themselves, as men of this world, but of another. As for cheering, remarkable is that prayer made in behalf of the Thessalonians, "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts."* It implieth that whereas we cannot possibly raise from ourselves any ground of hope, or have any lasting, much less everlasting consolation from the creatures, grace is a firm foundation for both. And this is it, which hath put the prince of darkness (whose desire it hath always been to keep men in as hopeless and comfortless condition as he can) upon using his utmost endeavours in all ages of the church, either to obstruct the doctrine of free grace, as by Pelagian and Arminian tenets, or to poison this fountain with corrupt deductions and inferences, as by Antinomians and Familists. Wherefore remember it so, as § 4. Secondly, In all thy tenets and discourses to magnify and exalt that to which thou owest so very much, indeed thine all that good is. Think it not enough, with some, of a thousand parts to ascribe nine hundred ninety and nine to free grace, reserving but one for free-will; for as * 2 Thess. ii. 16, 17. R Prosper resolves the case well, It is not devotion to give almost the whole to God, but deceit to retain the least part.* And again, grace is wholly repelled, where it is not wholly entertained.† I list not now to dispute the point: only let me have leave to commend to thy reading and observation a paper of verses, inserted by certain divines that were present at the Synod of Dort, into their suffrage, and comprehending a brief decision of the five articles there debated, with a pious inference from thence; because with me they have ever been of great esteem since I first met with them in the Acts of that Synod ‡. Gratia sola Dei certos elegit ab ævo ; Dat Christum certis gratia sola Dei; In English thus, Free grace alone elected some to bliss ; Free grace alone gave Christ to death for some; Some by free grace to perseverance come. § 5. A third branch of divine goodness is long * Non est devotionis dedisse prope totum, sed fraudis retinuisse vel minimum. + Gratia Dei tota repellitur, nisi tota suscipiatur. Acta Synod. Dordrect. in quarto, page 293. |