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ravishment on these Divine mysteries of election and predestination and assurance, I will stir myself up to desire and to pray for the same light and blessedness: and I am sure that the time is coming, either now or hereafter, when I shall know even as I am known; when I shall put away those childish things, and become a man of full stature in Christ Jesus. But I will beware lest I reject any of the good counsel of God, or suffer myself to be blinded by this man or that man's conce against it, because then I am so far forth a reprebate for if I reject God's word, reject I no God's Spirit, and rebel I not against the will e the Father, and reprehend I not the honour and fulness of Christ?' Yes, truly: if, listening to ary Legal or Evangelical, to any Worldly or Method tical, to any Arminian or Socinian glosses; if, per mitting yourselves to drink into the spirit of thes or any other schools, you do slur over in the reac ing, or trammel in the hearing, or neglect in ti meditating, any of the mysteries of this word God, though most high and difficult to be searche: into, then I testify that you are saying unto Lord, Hitherto shalt thou come and no further you are preferring the darkness to the light; you grieving the Holy Spirit, putting your souls in th most imminent peril, and doing your part to lar yourselves among the reprobate. But if the wickedest, the most lukewarm, and the most timore Christian who now heareth me, will, in a humb and teachable spirit, say unto the Lord, "Spea Lord, for thy servant heareth;" though he we a babe like Samuel, and like Samuel had neve before heard the voice of the Lord speaking u his soul-if he will say, Oh that the entering in

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thy word might give understanding to the simple!then let that poor and contrite soul know assuredly that he is on the way which leadeth into the 1 secret pavillion of the temple of the Lord, and is growing out of the blindness and deadness of nature into the life and light of the chosen of God. And if the strongest, most wise, and enlarged spirit in this church will do the same, he shall become mightier still: according to the saying of the Prophet, Every man shall become as David, and David shall become as God." Oh then, my beloved, deal fairly by the word; give it law, give it liberty. Blame and censure me; cut me to pieces with your criticisms, and blow me to atoms with the breath of your scorn; but, oh meddle not with the word and wisdom of God!-Yet while I say so, I also say, take heed how you hear, because I believe God will speak the truth by me for your sakes, if you desire to hear and to learn the truth. Thus have I given you liberty, O children of Christ, to feed upon the word of Christ; every one according to his present appetite and digestion; no one envying his brother's portion, or desiring to measure his brother's wealth by his own poverty. I have put you all between the conditions of election and reprobacy: all, all who are bap"tized into Christ Jesus, and wait upon these ordinances. The word will either prove your quickening into life eternal, or your condemnation unto death eternal. All of us stand alike tempted, alike invited: there is an election, and there is a reprobation amongst us: and the reception of this holy word will separate the one from the other in time and in eternity.

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PART III.

Having thus discoursed of grace and peace, the substantial fruits of the Incarnation; and justified the full and free preaching thereof unto the church; I would say a word, before concluding, upon the saving application of them to the heart of every believer. In which office, as in every other, I would rather walk under the guidance of God's word, than commit myself to my own judg ment; especially as I have found in the Epistle to Titus a passage in which the Apostle Paul sets himself to delineate, and in his own most compre hensive manner doth include in a few words, the whole of this subject (ii. 11-14). "For 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; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; whe gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Let us endea vour to gather up the parts of this apostolical delineation of grace.--The first characteristic of it is, that it bringeth salvation;" according as it is elsewhere written, By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." Grace, we have shewn above, is the affection of the Divine mind, or attribute of his being, from which our salvation proceedeth; which moveth his will thereto, determineth the method, informeth all the parts of the plan, is manifested through all the progress of the work, is crowned in

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its ultimate accomplishment, is now nobly confessed by all the saved, and standeth gloriously revealed in the mighty fruits and issues of the work through eternity. And while the stupendous fabric of all our salvation hath its foundation laid, and its walls upbuilded, and its corner-stone brought out, in the grace of God, whereby we are freely justified; it cometh to us, it apprehendeth and layeth hold on us, in the way of faith; and by the progress and increase of our faith, from faith to faith, in each man who is polished after the similitude of the Chief Head-stone, in order to be builded into the temple which is building to the honour and the glory of the grace of God. I say, the almighty, all-working Spirit, in making any of us who are dead in trespasses and sins a subject of Divine grace, doth proceed by working in us faith in God, who quickeneth the dead; and in Christ Jesus, who died for our sins, and was raised for our justification, and who hath received "all power in heaven and on earth, to grant repentance and remission of sins," and the fruits of the Holy Spirit. By the way of faith in an outward work of salvation done, and scheme of salvation revealed, he proceedeth; not by the way of good works, obedience of the law, good character, moral worth, honourable reputation, or some other thing within us, in which all men do by nature boast and build themselves up. As to ourselves, his first lesson is, that we are dead in trespasses and sins, objects of the Divine wrath and indignation: and even this lesson he can only teach us by reflexion from the law, as it was exemplified and fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord; so that even the truth of our natural perdition floweth from an act of faith in the grace of God manifested

in Christ Jesus. When we see our natural deadness, the work of our salvation is a good way advanced; the old man is stripped, and crowned with thorns, and crucified; and this argues the new man to be born, yea, lively, and come to no mean stature in our souls. But how came that new man to be quickened in death, and reared in the corruption of a tomb? Can Can any one say that he had any hand in it, or with all his might could have helped it on a jot; or that any power or might. less than the Almighty Spirit of free grace, sent to the undeserving and rebellious, and working in us against the main drift and tendency of our nature and the very principle of our being, hath brought it to pass, through a continual exercise of faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ; upon his life for righteousness, his death for atonement, his resurrection for quickening the dead, and his glory for the present hope and future fruition all the people whom his life redeemed from the curse of a broken law, whom his death justified. whom the power of his resurrection regenerated. and whom the hope of his glory saved? This s what is meant in the first operation of the grace of God, "that it bringeth salvation,"-that it saveth us through faith.

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It is next written, in this same large description of the work of grace, that it " hath appeared unto all men;" or, that it is universal in its epiphany or manifestation; that this feature of the Divine mind, or attribute of his substantial being, called grace, is an essential part of himself, which first came to our know ledge, or the knowledge of any creature, in the person and work of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and hath been held up to the observation

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