Now this distinction between the kindness which prompts a gift and the gift itself; or between the generosity as it exists in the bosom of the dispenser and the fruit of that generosity, as imparted in the shape of a service done or a benefit rendered to him who is the object of it-in a word, between the beneficence and the benefaction, enables us to discriminate between the different kinds of grace, which, though all emanating from the same fountain, even the good-will of Him who is in heaven, yet are each characterised or specified, and so as to distinguish them from the rest, by the distinct and particular good done to him in behalf of whom the grace and goodness of the Father of all spirits has been exercised. Thus there might be a justifying grace, as when God justifies the ungodly; or a sanctifying grace, as when God bestows His Spirit to help our infirmities; or, comprehensive of both, a saving grace, as1 when it is said " by grace are ye saved, and that not of yourselves-it is the gift of God:" Or, finally, the grace of our present text, the electing grace, here termed the grace of election that in the exercise of which He set His special love on certain of His creatures from all eternity, as on the seven thousand of Israel whom He reserved unto Himself, and who, in virtue of this His distinguishing favour, were borne onward in safety through all the dangers and temptations of their earthly pilgrimage, till admitted in secure and everlasting enjoyment to the blessedness of heaven.

1 Ephesians, ii, 5, 8.

141

LECTURE LXXXIV.

ROMANS, xi, 6-10:

And if by grace, then it is 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. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear ;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway."

THERE is one very obvious distinction between the electing grace of God, and the other sorts of it which have now been specified. In the election of any man thus favoured and thus signalised, God stood alone. The act took place before that the man was born, nay before the foundation of the world.1 It is not only prior to all the other forthputtings of Divine grace, but it gives birth to them all. If it be true that none but the elect shall obtain the kingdom of heaven; and it be also true that unless we are justified, and unless we are made holy, we shall not enter therein-then must every elect sinner have both the justifying and the sancEphesians, i, 4.

1

tifying grace put forth upon him, ere that he reaches his final destination; and the connection is not more inseparable between any consequents in nature or history, and the antecedents from which they have sprung, than that which binds together the justification and the sanctification which take place on earth with the election which took place in heaven-the one, in fact, being the source or the fountain-head whence the others flow. They follow each other like the links of a chain stretching backward to the eternity that is past, and forward to the eternity which is to come. Paul enumerates a few of these links, not all of them contiguous,-for other links than these he mentions, and intermediate between them, could be supplied both from other Scripture and from experience. "Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, (them he also sanctified; and whom he sanctified,) them he also glorified."

We have already said of the great and primary act of grace, the grace of election, that at the time of passing it, God was the alone party; and in this respect it stands distinguished from the other or subordinate acts of grace. For in these last man bears a part-nay we should hold it the evidence of a sensitive and extreme, and in fact ill-understood orthodoxy, to shrink from the assertion, that in these last man acts a part. By saying so, we infringe not in the least on the supremacy of God; nor abridge by ever so little the agency of His

grace, as being all in all in the business of man's salvation. It is most true that He worketh all in all; but He worketh on every distinct subject of His power agreeably to its distinct and characteristic nature. When working in the world of inorganic matter, He does not change the elements or bereave them of their respective properties and forces; but upholding them in these, and preserving the distinction between them-He maketh the winds and the waters and the lightnings, and even the inert and solid earth we tread upon, the instruments of His pleasure. When He worketh in the animal or vegetable kingdoms, He reverses not one law or process of physiology; but operating on every thing according to its kind, and without violence done either to the generical or specifical varieties of each still it is He who "causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herbs for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth;"1 and it is He also, who maintains the powers and the instincts of every living creature, as when in the sublime language of Job, He giveth to the horse its strength and clotheth his neck with thunder. And it is even so in the moral world. Every where He is all in all-supreme in the higher as in the lower departments of nature; and yet neither obliterating the characteristics, nor overbearing the functions of any individual thing in which or by which He is pleased to operate-whether it be a plant, or an animal, or finally a man

1 Psalm civ, 14.

over whom He has the entire and resistless sovereignty, yet exercises it with perfect conformity to all the feelings and faculties of his moral nature— his conscience-his intelligence-his choice-and the whole busy play of his emotions and purposes and endeavours. God worketh all in all, and as completely in man as in any other of His creatures. But what is it that He worketh in him? He worketh in him to will and to do. So that there is room both for the sovereign grace of God the Creator, and the spontaneous acting of man the creature. In all that is good, and therefore agreeable to God's good pleasure, the creature acts just in the degree, be it great or small, in which the Creator actuates. And therefore it is that in those acts of grace, which, as contradistinguished from its great and primary act, or the grace of election, we termed its subordinate acts-we say not merely that man bears a part, but even acts a part-As in believing, though faith be indeed the gift of God;1 or in understanding, though it be the Spirit who opens the understanding to understand the Scriptures; or in attending, though it be the Lord that openeth the heart to attend, as He did that of Lydia; or in praying, though it be from above that the Spirit of grace and supplication is poured upon us; or in willing, though it be God alone who makes us willing for good in the day of His power; or in striving, though we can strive mightily only according

1 Ephesians, ii, 8.
Zechariah, xii, 10.

Acts, xvi, 14. • Psalm cx, 3.