cated with the hidden things, which lie far out of sight among the viewless eminences of the region that is above us. We cannot in any possible way change our election, or make it surer than it is in itself. Neither can we make it surer than it already is unto God. Yet there is a way, and that too a way of diligence in certain things,1 by which we may make it sure unto ourselves-"for if ye do these things ye shall never fall." No doubt it is by the election of grace, that a remnant of Jews was preserved to the exclusion of the rest of the nation; but there is no such election as should foreclose the application to that outcast people of all that available grace, the means and instruments of which have been so amply put into our hands. It was upon their seeking wrongly, and not on election (ix, 32) that their rejection immediately or proximately turned; and again upon their seeking rightly will their restoration as immediately turn. "If they bide not still in unbelief," they will certainly be recalled; and there is nothing respecting them in the book of secret destiny which will hinder this result. Let the things which are written there be as impenetrably shrouded as they may, our way is clear-which is, to ply the children of Israel with the offers of salvation, and give no rest to God in prayer till He make Jerusalem a praise upon the earth. And for speeding onward the work of home Christianity our way is equally clear-which is, for ministers, on the one hand, to preach it urgently 1 2 Peter, i, 10.

and freely in the hearing of every man; and for aspiring disciples, on the other, to read and to supplicate and to reform the evil of their doings, and not only to seek but to strive, nay even to press with all vigour and violence into the kingdom of heaven, till they take it by force.

Ver. 6. And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more work.' For the full and clear exposition of this remarkable verse, it must be taken to pieces, that several distinct things may be adverted to.

'And if by grace.' If what by grace? Look to the preceding verse. There is a remnant according to the election of grace, and if by grace.' If it be by grace that there is a remnant—or if it be of grace that God has elected; or, looking to the anterior verse, if God have reserved them to Himself by grace. The apostle is here making statement of the cause or origin to which the selection of a certain number as God's own peculiar people, is to be referred. Their selection is by grace-a matter of mere favour-of free generosity and goodwill, and so altogether a gift on the part of God.

1

Then is it no more of works.' Grace is not only the cause of God having reserved a certain number to Himself; but it is the sole cause. He makes mention of another and a rival cause which has often been assigned for this preference of the elect

1 Ver. 4, κατελιπνο-Ver. 5, λειμμα.

by God; but he does so for the purpose of rejecting it-and thereby fortifies the simple assertion which he had made, or makes a more strenuous asseveration of it. He utterly repudiates the idea of its being a reward or recompence for works done, or we may add, for works foreseen. It is not of works in any way; but altogether a thing of sovereign and spontaneous bounty. It is a present, not a payment—a thing freely conferred by God, not rightfully claimed or challenged by man. though not of or by works, it may be to works. That is a different matter. Though it is not because we have lived righteously that we are made the objects of this grace, yet because the objects of this grace are we both taught and enabled to live righteously.

any man should boast."

Yet

"Not of works, lest Yet, after all, created

unto good works-for the same God who ordains to everlasting life, ordains also the heirs of a blissful eternity to walk in them. It is interesting to observe that the same high and absolute terms which guarantee the final salvation of the elect, guarantee also the virtuousness of their character and conduct. They are ordained, it is true, to eternal life3—yet are they ordained also to walk in good works. And they are predestinated to be His children-yet predestinated to be conformed unto the image of His Son. And they are chosen before the foundation of the world-yet chosen to

4

1 Titus, ii, 11, 12. Eph. ii, 10.

2 Eph. ii, 9, 10.
5 Eph. i, 5.

3 Acts, xiii, 48.

6 Rom. viii, 29.

be holy, and without blame in love. And they are elect according to foreknowledge-yet is it an election sealed and confirmed by the sanctification of the Spirit, as well as belief of the truth."

'Otherwise grace is no more grace. By this clause there is an advance made in the apostle's argument; and we are made to know of grace and works, that, not only are they distinct, but in the matter at issue they are opposites, or incompatible, nay mutually destructive the one of the other. What is earned by service is not received as a gift. As far as you make it a thing of favour, you annihilate it as a thing of merit; or as far as you make it a thing of merit, you annihilate it as a thing of favour. Neither must we understand it to be so far of works and so far of grace, or compounded and made up as it were of these two categories. The doctrine of the apostle here, as of the New Testament everywhere, is, that God's friendship is either of works wholly or of grace wholly. There is no intermediate ground between the first and second covenants-the one being altogether of works, and the other altogether of bounty. It is not of works in part and of grace in part, but either of grace entirely and works not at all, or of works entirely and grace not at all. It is by grace and not of works by ever so little, lest to the extent of that little any man should boast,3 or lest to the extent of that little it should be of debt. These two

'Ephesians, i, 4.

3 Ephesians, ii, 9.

4

elements are not only separated, but placed in opposition to each other, and so in fact as to make it a war of extermination between them. The attempt of piecing the one to the other, or of mixing together the two covenants, is utterly repudiated in Scripture, as fatal to the peace of the believer, and subversive of the whole economy of the gospel.

'But if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more work.' This whole clause is by critics of greatest authority rejected as an interpolation. It is but an expression, or more properly a reiteration of the same truth; and signifies that, of the two elements in question, as grace would utterly dispossess works from having ought to do in the matter of our acceptance with God, so works would as wholly and effectually dispossess grace.

That this holds true of God's electing grace is quite obvious, both from the nature of the grace itself and from other parts of Scripture. The children of election are made so before that they are born, or had yet done either good or evil-and this that the purpose of God might stand according to election, and not of works, but of Him that calleth. In the act of choosing or predestinating at the first, works could have no place; and grace was all in all. Then God was alone. Out and out the destiny of the blest to their everlasting happiness is a thing of His determination—a determination including, no doubt, the previous or preparatory works 1 Romans, ix, 11.