I will give them shall be in them, a well of water springing up to everlasting life." (John iv. 14. All is of grace. Faith, repentance, love, obedience, perseverance in well-doing, are all expressly declared to be "the gifts of God,' (Eph. ii. 8. Acts v, 31. Gal. v. 6. Heb. viii. 10. John x. 28.) or the effects immediately produced by those gifts.

It must not be inferred from hence, that we are machines, actuated merely by impulses from without or within ourselves. By no means. The first of God's gifts in sanctification is "the restoration of our will to its right choice of God as our Master." He calls upon us daily to make use of the measure of grace which he hath given us, with the promise of the increase of it. We choose what God approves. The choice and work consequent thereupon is not the less our own, because "his grace prevents us that we may have a good-will, and worketh with us when we have that good-will." (Article X.)

3. The eternal salvation of our souls is also of grace, It is certain that God hath promised to reward us "according to our works." (Rev. xxii, 12. 1 Cor. xv. 41.) And that there will be in the day of judgment a proportion between the work and the reward. Some will "shine as stars" of greater magnitude than others: but eternal life will not cease nevertheless to be the gift of God through Jesus Christ; and we shall, "as many as are saved, look for eternal life as the mercy of the Lord." (Jude 21.) For not only have we obtained the first step of admission into the kingdom of heaven by grace; and the subsequent ones, which in God's appointed way of holiness we have taken through the same, but also our inheritance is still "a purchased possession." (Eph, i. 14.) Christ's perfect obedi

ence affords the only legal claim to life eternal. We receive it therefore as of promise through him. There will be in us "a meetness indeed for the inheritance amongst the saints in light;' (Coloss. i. 12.) and this greater in one than in another; but no meritorious claim. No man will then say, "I am worthy." No, he will be surprised even at what Christ adjudges to him, as conscious how unworthy he is: if he must en ter into the kingdom, it will be for ever to proclaim, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive glory, and honour, and praise, and blessing." (Rev. iv. 11.)

III. It is of faith that it might be by grace. (Rom. iv. 16.) It could be of grace no other way than by faith. Faith stands opposed to works in the next verse: "Not of works lest any man should boast." (Eph. ii. 9.) If works of any kind preceded our acceptance with God, it would be no more of faith; nor consequently by grace. This is the alone medium by which the gift of God can be conveyed to us to secure the whole glory to himself. Those who know not the necessity of thus receiving the gift of God, from a deep conviction of the impossibility of doing any work pleasing to God until their attainder is reversed, ever oppose this method of salvation as too abasing. And they who object to it, as having an unfavourable influence on morality, shew evidently their utter unacquaintedness both with the nature of true faith and the effects of it.

"Faith is a divine conviction of the veracity of God in his word." The general object of it is the word of God: the effect wrought by that word is conviction of the truth. The agent is God: "It is the gift of God." A man can no more reason himself into true faith, than he can

create a world: all external evidence is of itself incapable of producing it. The head may have nothing to object, when the heart is as far as ever from "believing unto righteousness," nor feels any of the constrainings of divine energetic faith. Though the external evidence be from God, there must be an internal divine conviction also. It is the work of the Holy Ghost "to convince of righteousness, (John xvi. 8.) and enable us to believe." (Phil. i. 29. 1 Cor. ii. 14.)

The great object of faith in the word is Jesus Christ, and all the promises which are in him: these revealed by the faithful God, faith acquiesces in and embraces. And in this submission to the righteousness of God, and acceptance of salvation by faith, there is implied,

First-An acknowledgment of a state of absolute helplessness and guilt: whilst we imagine we have any thing of our own to commend us to God, faith is made void. The salvation by grace proposed to faith is only for the lost and desperate; for those who are convinced they are nothing, have nothing, can do nothing pleasing to God. Until the soul be brought to this state of self-emptiness, a man cannot "believe to salvation:" He must be going about to establish his own righteousness. He will ever be thinking that he hath or ought to have some claim to the divine favour above another man. He will be trusting, in whole or in part, on something done or to be done by him, instead of what has been done for him seventeen hundred years ago but when any soul is taught his real state, then he is assured he must be saved by grace, or not at all. The grand mistake is here. Men know not the depth of their natural corruption, wickedness and weakness. This dis

covered, salvation by grace through faith will meet no more objections.

Secondly, In receiving this salvation, faith simply submits to the truth declared. It receives the "record of God, that he hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." (1 John v. 11.) It doth nothing to merit salvation, nor does the possessor of it see any desert in himself more than in the vilest of sinners. Faith freely takes what God freely gives the sinner's heart, as the beggar's hand, readily receives the gift of grace.

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Thus it is, that through faith at first we are brought into a state of reconciliation with God; and being being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord :" (Rom. v. 1.) and ever after it is the support of our soul, or rather the channel of conveying to us the supplies of grace for all our life of holiness: "The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." (Gal. ii. 20,) Believing the certainty of the promises in him, "we draw water out of these wells of salvation :" (Isai. xii. 3.) and our final perseverance and eternal happiness come in the same way; "being kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." (1 Pet. 1. 5.) He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." (Matt. x. 22.) We shall endure if our faith fail not. From the whole, I trust the salvation by grace through faith hath appeared to you plainly to be the word of God; and have nothing more to add than a short application from what has been said.

1. What encouragement doth the gospel give to every sinner who sees his guilt and misery? "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all ac

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ceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners; yea, the chief of sinners." (1 Tim. i. 15.) No man need despair because he is a poor and miserable wretch that hath no works to plead; nothing "but evil, and that continually." Salvation is of grace, "without money and without price;" (Isai. lv. 1.) and therefore free for every guilty soul. Think not that because sin hath abounded, that therefore you are far from hope. By no means: "where sin hath abounded, there shall grace much more abound." (Rom. v. 20.) God's salvation is one. Whatever degrees of guilt men may have contracted, it bears the same favourable aspect to all. They who have the least sin must be damned if they do not plead it; and they who have the greatest are sure of pardon and acceptance if they do. It is not suspended on any conditions of previous endeavours and labours, and resolutions of amendment; for that were to destroy the riches of the grace, and to counteract the very designs of God. You are no more required to do any thing to merit it, than you are to pluck the sun from the heavens, or stay the current of the seas. Indeed you might as easily do the one as the other. You are undone and lost; your case is desperate: God will glorify his grace in pardoning you. He sends his Son: he declares "he is well-pleased in him," and with all that come to God by him; here is the gift. It is as free as the light of the sun: "Look to him and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." (Isai. xlv. 22.) He wants no good thing of you. He asks for no such thing from you: "Believe, and be saved," (Acts xvi. 31.) is the gospel word. In self despair thus to be found at the foot of the cross is salvation begun; and that life derived from a be