VER. 12.] SERMONS UPON 2 THESSALONIANS I. 345
that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood.' _ So, thirdly, it was grace, in that what he did and suffered was accepted in our name : Kom. iii. 24, 25, ' Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood ; ' Job xxxiii. 24, ' Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.' When the ram was taken, Isaac was let go. We were in the hands of our judge, ready for our execution ; but he accepted a ransom instead of us, and so we were dismissed from punishment.
[2.] For the means of application. Three are mentioned — (1.) Calling; (2.) Faith; (3.) Work of faith.
(1.) For calling, it is a mere act of God's grace : 2 Tim. i. 9, ' Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling ; not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ before the world began.' That is, not that we had deserved this mercy, but out of his free goodness designed to us in Christ, long before it took effect. His own grace only moved God, as is plain if we consider the estate wherein calling found us, sinful and wicked, sense- less of our misery, and careless of our remedy ; the estate in which he left us ; from enemies, we became friends ; from strangers, we became domestics and children of his family ; from carnal and unholy, we became spiritual and sanctified. Or lastly, the estate into which he will bring us, to eternal happiness ; and all this passing by thousands and ten thousands, who, for their deserts, were all as good as we, and for outward respects far better than ourselves.
(2.) For faith, it is the gift of God to us : Eph. ii. 8, ' By grace ye are saved, through faith ; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.' It was the mere undeserved mercy of God that gave us this grace of believing. The very means of faith is a mere free gift, the matter of the gospel being no way to be known but by divine revelation. It was grace that he sent the gospel to us ; his working faith in you being an act of God's free will, and merciful pleasure ; for where the gospel is sent, all do not embrace it : Acts xvii. 3, 4, ' Some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas : but the Jews which believed not, moved with envy,' &c. For if you had heard of Christ never so much, could you ever have believed that the carpenter's son was the Son of God, and he that was persecuted to the death was the Lord of life and glory ; that they that are dead shall live, the body dis- solved into dust, and that dust mingled with other dust ? Could you believe this without faith ? Could you ever have brought your own mind to quit all things you see and love, for a God and glory you never saw ; and closed with these supernatural and spiritual truths with so much disadvantage and loss to yourselves, without God's powerful, internal illumination, and be willing to row against the stream of flesh and blood for a happiness that lieth in another world ? Think of these things, and tell me who worketh faith.
(3.) The work of faith. It is accomplished in you by the grace of God, which hath enabled such unworthy wretches to perform that obedience which may be accepted with him : Heb. xiii. 21, ' The God of peace make you perfect in every good work to do his will,
346 SERMONS UPON 2 THESSALONIANS I. [SeR. XVL
working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen.' It is God that doth incline and prepare our hearts for all christian duties, and enable and excite us to do what is acceptable and pleasing to him ; without the sanctifying grace of God none of this can be done. Look, what preservation and providence is to creation, so is this perfecting to regeneration. As we are created in Christ to good works, so we are perfected in Christ. Unless he work in us and with us, and that of his own good pleasure, we can do nothing, Phil. ii. 12, 13. Still we depend upon God, as for the power given and continued to us, so for the working itself ; both will and deed are from him, and he causeth us actually to do whatever we do, and this mercy we obtain of God by Christ.
3. The ends, that Christ may be glorified in us, and we in him.
[1.] All the glory Christ hath from his people, or communicateth to them, is from grace : Kom. viii. 36, ' Of him, and through him, and to him are all things.' And therefore we must not sacrilegiously rob him of the glory of his grace, in whole or in part. More particularly —