INTRODUCTION.

THE design of the following pages is to analyze the covenant of grace, as revealed in the word of God, and developed in the experience of the church of Christ. There is no Scripture character in which the principles of that covenant are more conspicuously brought out, and displayed, than that of David. David has, therefore, been selected as the exemplar. And it has been my endeavour to trace, through the various incidents of his eventful history, as far as the limits of a few sermons would admit, the rise and progress of divine grace from its first manifestation in the day of his anointing to its issue.

In the following Discourses it is contended, because scripturally true, that all grace in David, as well as in every member of the church of Christ, without exception, springs in the election of God. As that article of belief, however, has

become so unpalatable to the vitiated taste of modern theology, and is so offensive to many of the members of the Church of England, though her Articles will have it so, some introductory remarks on this subject will not be deemed irrelevant. This is the more necessary because the intention of this course of Sermons was not either a critical or elaborate discussion of any particular doctrine.

It has pleased God to lay the ground-work of a believer's hope in the election of grace. This is the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, "elect, precious." Himself chosen of the Father for that purpose, "Behold, my servant whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. (Isaiah xlii. 1.) "To whom coming," saith St. Peter, "as unto a living Stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." (1 Peter ii. 4, 5.) Election, unto everlasting life, is the new-creation purpose of God, "who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will." The sovereign will of God in this purpose, is hidden from the saving knowledge of all men until revealed by a

"new-birth;" to which Jesus Christ appealed,

and on which he hangs the hope of salvation;

Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John iii. 5.) And the purpose of God, thus unfolded by an act of sovereign grace, is carried on and acted out through all the subsequent stages of the believer's life, and that in a complete consistency with every attribute and perfection of Deity. Infinite love beams in the principle;the wisdom of God in the plan;-the same power in the execution. Infinite mercy has its perfect work, without encroaching upon justice; and the justice of God is magnified in the triumphs of his mercy. In the developement of the whole, moreover, the sovereignty of God's grace, and the equity of his moral government, are upheld and preserved inviolate and entire.

Take away the election of grace, and you leave God without a purpose, or what amounts to the same thing, without a mind or a will. All the issues of salvation in that case, must be resolved into the will of man; and redemption, the bloodbought inheritance of God's eternal Son, becomes at once a matter of adventurous speculation, of wild conjecture, subject to diversified casualties and ultimate uncertainty. Such a view of truth il comports with the words of wisdom which the Holy Ghost teacheth, who bases the

consolation and the good hope of the heirs of promise on the word and the oath of God, and the immutability of his counsel. "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before us." (Heb. vi. 17, 18.) When, in connexion with this, the everlasting covenant which David attests, was all his salvation and all his desire, I examine the Thirty-nine Articles, which constitute at once the beauty and the barrier of the English church,-such is the spirit of unity and concord between them, that, to me at least, the one appears to be but a commentary on the other.

The Articles of our Church are a lucid epitome of Scripture doctrines, Scripture truths, and Scripture precepts-a manual of sound theology.

Therein is laid, a sure foundation, the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, the unity of the Three Persons, the co-equal and co-eternal Jehovah in one undivided Godhead;-the Trinity in Unity as the Author of the covenant of grace, and the Unity of the Trinity in acting out the grace of that covenant.

Therein, as more largely set out in the Seven

teenth Article, every member of our Church professes to believe that salvation is from first to last of God. And therein are contained the doctrines and the truths brought out and enforced in the course of the present undertaking, viz. the election of God; the calling of the saints; their obedience to that calling, by the same grace; their complete justification; their adoption into the family of God; their sanctification, involving conformity to his will, and likeness to his image; and, at length, through God's mercy, their glorification, or attainment unto everlasting felicity.

As a member, my Christian reader, of a church so constituted, and as a minister who have subscribed her Articles, having solemnly, before God, pledged my oath that I will religiously maintain them, I am only contending for the faith once delivered to us by the Fathers, and discharging my duty, when I base the church in election, the doctrine of that Article. The words of the Article are on this wise-" Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of