highest species, and the very one that requires it most, being the species of divinity. 7. Without considering how they are related, besides reason and knowledge with the other correlatives before mentioned, we may still find room for another and another. For though one had all reason and knowledge, and all faith, so that one could remove mountains and had not charity, it would be nothing (Cor. I. xiii. 2) and the same likewise, if one had not holiness with sobriety (Tim. I. ii. 15). 8. Lastly, putting faith against All the world, and supposing faith and the world to have begun together, it may be queried, which shall continue longest? Our Saviour tells his disciples, that "he that endureth to the end shall be saved" (Matt. x. 22). While on another occasion he queries rather abruptly, but the query is very important, whether the Son of man when he cometh shall find faith upon the earth (Luke xviii. 8). For whether this query refer to the great day of judgment, or to our individual summoning to appear before the tribunal of divine justice as we depart this life, the occurrence only in the latter case will certainly be a great trial for our faith, and such as we may deprecate long before it arrives, praying the worthy Judge eternal that He would not suffer us at our last hour for any pains of death to fall from Him.* The property next * Between different parties in the church, and especially between two that are apt to brand each other with epithets not worth repeating, such a broil has been got up between faith and works as must needs be very injurious to one of them, or it may be to both, if either of the said parties should ever be suffered to predominate materially: which God forbid. For one of them by never preaching works in detail, nor reading of them either in the Holy Scriptures if they can help it, but abstracting and refining them to a mere shadow if they cannot help mentioning them, do what they can to drive these out of remembrance: while the other party, by preaching works, perhaps, sometimes, (when they do preach,) but still on general principles, which they have learned somewhere but not in the gospel, do what they can to abolish the Christian faith, and good works likewise; as no work can be good in a Christian country if it be not Christian; any more than the country itself can be Christian without the Christian faith and to be mentioned will exemplify a good part of our dependence with his kind interposition being, § 2. The good objective characteristic, Grace or New Life, than which there are few subjects in divinity perhaps that have been so much talked of and so little considered; which makes it almost like a new theme, and consequently more difficult than others that may have been partly matured by popular discussion with more heed: yet one might venture a few remarks on 1, the nature and derivation of the subject; 2, its efficacy and necessity; 3, foundation and affinities; 4, access, reception and other accidents. 1. Considering an expression of St. Paul's, " By grace are ye saved through faith," with only common attention, one might be apt to doubt, respecting the Nature of the property, whether as a principle, faith should be repeated first in the way of godliness, or not rather grace, which would seem to be the cause or principle of faith. But more than common attention will enable us to discover in this case the same reciprocity of cause and effect which our Saviour ascribes to good properties in general, "Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance" (Matt. xiii. 12); and how faith may be a medium of grace or of the heavenly principle, the Holy Ghost, from which it proceeds, when that Principle being at first incidental only, and as it were, a stranger to its new subject, is domesticated, and from an incidental become a constituent. Then it will be as St. John says, grace for grace" (John i. 16): and as St. Paul might have said, only by reversing the order of his forecited expression, "Through faith are ye saved by grace": this is a consequence of your faith: this is what you get by believing, or receive by the medium of faith; v. g. the grace or new life which leads directly to salvation. But understanding by Grace, as used in this and many such good works as must inevitably proceed from that faith wherever it exists. other passages of the apostolic epistles, no more than some would be glad to have it, which is an insipid purpose, we should not need to be in much concern about its order and station among godly characteristics; and then too they would not be obliged to acknowledge an opposite production in man's fall or DISGRACE, which is very inconvenient for their antichristian opinions. Therefore, it may be proper to observe, that grace, without ever being two things, will, in the first place, like every other property, have two forms, types, or appearances; virtual and eventual, or essential, and characteristic. As virtual and essential, grace will denote both the substance and particulars of a Christian life: which was the cause of the twofold designation here given it, namely of Grace and New Life. Virtually and essentially grace is the general attribute of divine light and life which was in the beginning; as St. John says, "The same was in the beginning with God.-In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John i. 2, 4). Eventually, and characteristically, grace will be favour, beauty, elegance in a supreme degree, so far as to have been even tribed and deified by some who had a livelier sense than ordinary of its moral perfection: and upon the whole it may be considered as positive an existence, as wisdom or truth, or any other excellent characteristic that we derive from the same quarter; being first New Life to those who are favoured with it, but always in itself and eventually to them the life eternal. "And this is life eternal, (said its blessed Mediator to the Parent of life,) that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John xvii. 3). If any man will be at the pains to consider, he shall find that many positive acts, whether in doing, or giving, or any other mode, with the properties they compose, and many properties so composed together pass very often under the head of some general characteristic; as all the operations of the Most High, for example, under the head of Mercy according to the Psalmist, where he says, "All VOL. II. the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies" (Ps. xxy. 9). As loving makes love, and giving bounty, and doing good beneficence, so all the doings of the Lord, and others' doings by Him, his primitive and imparted life, are mercy and truth, and all his giving in the same manner is purely GRACE. We need not therefore feel any more hesitation concerning the nature of grace in its receiver than in its Giver or itself: for the characteristic may be traced among a thousand properties, if so many should ever happen to be got together; "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" (Phil. iv. 8), remember their origin as well as their quality, and you will not be far from the notion of grace. Grace, generally considered, may denote any kind of benefit gratuitously bestowed in relation either to the bestower or the receiver: but more particularly considered in relation to "the Giver of all goodness", the term will have a double aspect and consequent import, as relating not only to the bounty of the Giver, but also to the demerit of the receiver, whereby the weight or quantum of grace is doubled. Before man was created, of course he could deserve neither good nor evil; therefore, all the good, whether physical or moral, that he received in creation, an ample treasure, was simply a gift by grace. And if the Almighty in becoming a Creator and consequently bound both implicitly and explicitly to the object of his creation, as man in becoming a parent becomes bound to the fruit of his body, made grace to be justice; yet in the sequel, after man had forfeited the whole treasure of his existence by a capital delinquency, and so deserved annihilation or every inferior evil, for no evil can be so great as that, then to be made an object of divine bounty again in spite of his demerit, seemed like grace upon grace, or grace doubled; SUCH IS THE GRACE OF GOD considered as a general principle of salvation, which St. Paul intimates, when he says, "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men" (Tit. ii. 11). And considering the same more definitely as we have it in Christ, being then not only a gift, as it is said, "According to the gift of the grace of God” (Eph. iii. 7), but a prodigious sacrifice and immense purchase, it must appear like grace upon grace, tripled and quadrupled; and SUCH IS THE Grace OF GOD BY CHRIST, or as it is oftener styled, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; it being again the same principle in a more particular application, when "We believe, THAT THROUGH THE GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST WE SHALL BE SAVED" (Acts xv. 11). WE Thus the whole process of salvation is in effect generally the grace of God, and his gift of eternal life; but especially the gift of grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, abounding unto many" (Rom. v. 15), "the gift of God in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Ib. vi. 23). And this gift so emphatically denoted by the name of Grace coming only by Jesus Christ, "full of grace and truth" (John i. 14), and high above all other marks of God's favour, whether in person, mind, or fortune, will signify likewise the gift of the Holy Ghost, by which we are regenerate, and have a new life; coming still to the same point of life, grace, or unmerited favour, and MORE THAN UNMERITED, being the very reverse of our desert; as when a vanquished foe receives his life from the victor, and not only life but PROTECTION. All the favour and pro tection that we receive from God must needs be unmerited, as aforesaid, consequently all pure grace; and that will be all that believers receive: his chastisements as well as his blessings; our birth, life, and death, and removal to a better state, are all favour and grace. How partial a conception of the property must it be, to understand thereby, as many do, either an inefficient purpose only, as aforesaid, or at most, but a casual, a preservation from sin, or |