CHURCH AND CONGREGATION

OF

Protestant Dissenters

AT

ROWELL;

To whom the substance of these SERMONS was preached, and at whose desire they are published.

My dear Brethren and Friends,
beloved in our common Lord,

WHEN I first preached these plain sermons to my own congregation, which I here offer to your perusal, I was much surprised at the request which several of them made, that they might be printed: but I was yet more surprised, when after having delivered the substance of them in one discourse at Rowell some time after, you so unanimously and affectionately made that request your own. I apprehend, that though the many excellent treatises we have on this subject already, might excuse my backwardness to comply with the first motion of this kind; yet absolutely to have refused your repeated solicitation, might have appeared disrespectful to my good friends, and perhaps have looked like some unwillingness to bear my testimony to this great and important doctrine, in an age in which the credit of many evangelical truths seems to be fallen very low.

I am really sorry I have delayed this little service so long; but it was chiefly owing to my desire of finishing my sermons on REGENERATION, which indeed cost me more labor than I at first apprehended. That seemed a business of such importance, that I knew not how to interrupt it: but as they are now almost printed off, I send out these discourses as a kind of supplement to them; and therefore they are printed in a form very fit to bind up with them. The delay is more excusable, as SALVATION BY GRACE is not a subject which grows out of date in a few months. This glorious doctrine has been the

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joy of the church in all ages on earth; and it will be the song of all that have received it in truth throughout the ages of eternity, and be pursued in the heavenly regions with ever growing admiration and delight.

I cannot conclude this short address without congratulating you on the abundant goodness of God to you as a church, in bringing among you that worthy and excellent person,* under whose pastoral care you are now so happily placed. I know he is a faithful witness to the truths of the gospel, and rejoice in that rich abundance of gifts and graces, which render him so fit to state and improve them in the most advantageous, as well as most agreeable and delightful manner. I hope and believe, that the grace he so humbly owns his dependence upon, will add happy success to his labors: and I heartily pray that you and neighboring churches may long be happy in him; and that God, who has, by such various and gracious interpositions in your favor, expressed his paternal care of you, may still delight to dwell among you. May he multiply you with men like a flock, daily adding to his Church among you such as shall be saved! May your souls continually rejoice in his salvation! And may you ever walk worthy of the Lord, and prove, by the integrity and purity, the spirituality and usefulness of your whole behavior, that this grace of God which brings salvation has entered with power into your hearts; and that it is your care and delight to improve it, as well as to hear of it! To contribute to this blessed end, by this or any other attempt of cordial love and Sithful respect, will be an unspeakable pleasure to, My dear friends,

Your very affectionate servant,
in the bonds of our common Lord,

Northampton, Sept. 1, 1741.

P. DODDRIDGE.

Rer. Mr. Jonathan Sattædersom

BY

GRACE.

SERMON I.

EPHES. II. 8.

For by grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.

YOU are often, my dear breth ren and friends, hearing of the duties of a religious life; and it cannot but be a pleasure to every faithful minister of . Christ to observe, how willing, nay, how glad you are to hear of them; and with respect to many of you, how ready you are to practise them. But I am now coming to you with a renewed admonition on another head, which is always to be taken in connexion with the former; and which, I persuade myself, will in that view be welcome to you all. I am to inculcate it upon you, that when you have done your utmost, how much soever that be, you should still say, that you are unprofitable servants (1); and endeavor to maintain a deep sense of it upon your hearts, that, as the Apostle admonishes the believing Ephesians in the words of the text, By grace ye are saved through faith; and that not ef yourselves; it is the gift of God.

The Apostle, in his preceding discourse, speaks of the happy change which the Gospel had made in the state of these poor heathens. He freely ac knowledges on this occasion, that the Jews were likewise in a very bad siate, and if not entirely sunk into the same enormities, yet were by nature children of wrath, even as others (2). So that, on the whole, both were, as it might be expressed by an ea(2) Eph. ii. 1.

(1) Luke xvii. 10.

ay and very proper figure, dead in trespasses and sing (1), indisposed for any religious sensations and actions, and far more odious to God than a putrid carcase is to men. But he adds, that God by his grace had saved them: that his unmerited goodness had begun their salvation, and having thus far carried it on, would undoubtedly complete it: and that he might impress their minds the more deeply with it, be repeats it again, By grace ye are saved. So much was the apostle Paul concerned to inculcate a doctrine which some are ready to look upon as unnecessary, and others perhaps as dangerous. But the apostle's authority is abundantly enough to outweigh all that can be laid in the opposite scale. And it will appear from what I have further to offer, that if it had not in this view so direct a sanction from his express testimony, the conclusion would follow by the justest deduction of argument, from principles so fundamental to the Gospel, that they cannot be denied without subverting its whole superstructure.

And here, if I would treat the subject in its full extent, I might consider what we mean by gospel salvation: but I content myself at present with telling you, in a few words that it implies "a deliverance from that ruinous and calamitous condition into which, by our apostacy from God, we are fallen;" and also includes" our being restored to the Divine favor, and all the happy effects of it, as extending not only to time but to eternity."

I might also consider at large the nature of that faith to which the promises of salvation are made. But that is a subject you have heard so frequently explained, that I shall only remind you of that general account of it which has often been illustrated among you. 'Saving faith," for of that we are now speaking, "is such a persuasion, that Christ is the great Messiah, the Son of God, and the Saviour of men; and such a desire and expectation of the bles

(1) Eph. ii. 1, 5.

sings he has procured under that character; as shall engage us cheerfully to commit our souls to him in his appointed method of salvation, with a disposi tion cordially to devote ourselves to his service in all the ways of holy and evangelical obedience." The several branches of this definition are to be taken in their connexion with each other; and then there would be no difficulty in shewing, from the whole tenor of Scripture, that as nothing short of this can be acceptable to God, so wherever such a principle really is, the soul in which it is found is entitled to all the blessings of the covenant of grace, and has all the security for eternal happiness which the promise and oath of God can give. I might also easily shew you, that this is such a description of faith, as effectually secures the interest of practical religion, and guards against every presumptuous hope which may be formed in a soul destitute of a principle of universal holiness.

But waving the further prosecution of these preliminaries to our subject, which we have occasion so often to dilate upon, I shall make it my present business,

I. To consider how we may be said to be saved through faith.

II. How it appears that, in consequence of this, we are saved by grace.

III. I shall examine the force of the Apostle's additional argument, which is drawn from the consideration, that faith is the gift of God. And then,

IV. 1 shall collect some inferences from the whole. And may God write on your hearts, as with a point of a diamond, them and the premises on which they are founded!

I. We are to consider in what sense it may be said, that Christians are saved through faith.

Ye are, says the Apostle [sesoosmenoi] the saved ones-the persons who have already received the beginnings of salvation, and the certain pledge of