Gospel is preached in its purity. Such being unques- tionably the dispensations of God's providence, we must not wonder if a similar exercise of sovereignty appear in the dispensations of his grace. To draw the precise limits, where human agency concurs with the operations of God's Spirit, or where it resists and frustrates them, is beyond our power; but of this we may be well assured, — that all evil is from man ; all good from God. We shall have strong evidence of this in the passage before us ; in which we see the difference that exists between different men,
I. In their regard for Christ —
Mankind may be divided into two classes ; be- lievers, and unbelievers.
Now of all the things which may serve to distin- guish these, there is none more decisive than their different regard to Christ.
To the believer, Christ is "precious" —
[We need not enter into all the grounds of a believer's love to Christ : suffice it to say, that he feels himself indebted to Christ for all his hopes in this life, and for all his prospects in the next. He has washed in the fountain of the Redeemer's blood, and has been cleansed by it from all sin : he has lived by faith on the Son of God, and has received out of his ful- ness all needful supplies of grace and peace. Hence he looks upon Christ, not merely as a friend and benefactor, but as a Saviour from death and hell. He esteems him, not only as precious, but as preciousnessa itself. In comparison of him, all other things are considered as dung and dross ''.]
To the unbeliever, Christ is "a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence" —
[Unbelief and disobedience are so nearly allied, that they are, in the Greek language, expressed by the same word*. Indeed unbelief is the highest act of disobedience ; for " this is God's commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son, Jesus Christ a."
To exercise faith on Christ is the duty of all. He is " the stone which is laid in Zion," and on which we are to build all
a rip/. b Phil. iii. 8.
c aireideia. Compare Rom. xi. 32. with Eph. ii. 2. i 1 John iii. 23.
2e395.] STATES OF BELIEVERS AND UNBELIEVERS. 195
our hopes. But " the builders themselves, the heads of the Jewish Church, rejected him :" and notwithstanding " he is become the head of the corner," " the disobedient" still reject him. It was foretold that this would be the treatment shewn him by the generality6: and the event has fully justified the prediction. The grounds indeed on which men reject him, are altered ; but their conduct towards him is the same as was observed in the days of old. The Jews were offended at his mean appearance, and his high pretensions ; and particularly at his professing to supersede the Mosaic law : and, on these accounts, they crucified him as an impostor. We on the con- trary, profess to honour him as the true Messiah; but are offended at the salvation which he has revealed : we think it too humiliating in its doctrines, and too strict in its precepts : we cannot endure to give him all the glory of our salvation : nor can we submit to walk in those paths of holiness and self- denial which he has trodden before us. On these accounts many reject his Gospel : they cry out against it, as discouraging the practice of good works, as opening the very flood-gates of iniquity, and (strange as the contradiction is) making the way to heaven so strait and difficult that no one can walk in it. Thus, instead of building on Christ as the foundation-stone, they make him only " a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence f."]
How far this is to be traced to any antecedent purposes of God, will appear more distinctly, while we mark the difference between them,