we receive from God be the cause or ground of his conferring it upon us ?
The text, it is true, speaks of God's sending his Son into the world to die for us : and it may be thought, that no one would ascribe that gift to any merit of his own. We grant it : but, if men do not ascribe to their own merits the gift of a Saviour, they ascribe to their own merits the gift of salvation itself: yea, exceeding vehemently do they arrogate to themselves this honour : and when they are constrained to acknowledge, that in their unregenei-ate state they have done no good works to deserve salvation, they will maintain, that God has respect to some good which he has foreseeri in them, and makes some natural or acquired excellence in them the reason and the measure of his favour towards them. But we can scarcely conceive any expressions more strong than those by which God cautions his people against this vain conceit. Hear what
he said respecting it to his chosen people the Jews1
Hear also what Jesus said to his own immediate Disciples, who had certainly as good ground for boasting as any of us
can havek Hear further what St. John says in a few
verses after our text, and which is applicable, not to one age or people, but to the saints of God in every age ; " We love him, because he first loved us1." But indeed it is the voice of Scripture from one end to the otherm, that " God has mercy on whom he will have mercy11," and that " there is a remnant according to the election of grace0." To be making this truth a constant subject of our ministrations, as some do, is highly injudicious; but, when it comes fairly in our way, we must maintain it, as necessary for the abasing of man's pride, and for the exalting of God's honour and glory.]
2. The impiety of it —
[God is a jealous God: his very " name is Jealous11," and " his glory he will not give to anotherq. Now the great end for which he has redeemed man, was the advancement of his own glory. St. Paul, in the space of a few verses, repeats this
almost to satiety, if we may so speakr But to ascribe
the gift of a Saviour, or of salvation, either in whole or in part, to our love to him, is to rob him of his glory ; and to establish a ground for glorying in ourselves, when he has declared, " that no flesh shall glory in his presence s." Now, in refer- ence to ourselves, we are backward to acknowledge that there
1 Deut. vii. 7, 8. and ix. 4 — 6. and Ezek. xxxvi. 22, 32.
k John xv. 16. l ver. 19.
m Jer. xxxi. 3. Eph. ii. 8, 9. 2 Tim. 1, 9.
n Rom. ix. 11, 15, 16. ° Rom. xi. 5. p Exod. xxxiv. 14.
i Isai. xlii. 8. r Eph. i. 5—7, 9, 11, 12, 14. and iii. 10, 11.
s 1 Cor. i. 27—29.
i i 2