is special and peculiar to the persons of the Lord's people, distinguished from the world, is evident from what is said on the subject. For while we read, that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they which dwell therein,”—the same Divine authority declares, that the Lord hath chosen Jacob for himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure:"*" "This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise." And more, the man of God was commanded to instruct the Church in this leading doctrine of special personal love: "Behold!" says he, "the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, is the Lord's thy God; the earth, also, with all that therein is." 'Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them; and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day."†

66

No view of grace tends to humble the soul more than personal distinguishing grace; neither any other to raise the depressed spirits of the Lord's people, under soul exercises living, or upon a dying pillow. And the consciousness that no motive but what is in Himself moved God to the manifestation of such Sovereignty, bringing

up the poor distressed heart in an hour of sorrow, like an anchor to a ship in a dark tempestuous night, to take confidence and ride out the storm. It is indeed blessed, —yea, very blessed, to be enabled to have always in view such apprehensions of the Lord's delight in the persons of His people as chosen in Christ. For this connects, in one view, all the events of the time-state we are the subjects and objects of in exercise, with the Everlasting † Deut. x. 14, 15.

* Ps. cxxxv. 4.

love of God towards our persons in Christ before the world began. And hence the conclusion which follows: If the Lord delighted in His people then, he cannot cease to love them now; so that His pleasure, and not our happiness, was the first predisposing cause; and, therefore, the Lord is more concerned for our welfare, than we are for our own.

I will detain the reader with but one observation more, in confirmation of this doctrine of the Lord's taking pleasure in his people, namely, that He who chose the Church in Christ for His own pleasure before the world began, hath engaged to confirm them unto the end, that they may be "blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."

It is highly to be observed, and exceedingly to be prized by the Lord's people, that the Holy Ghost, when leading out the mind of his servant, the Apostle Paul, to pray for the Church, directed him to use this very argument, of the good pleasure of the Lord, as the security for their perseverance to the end: "Wherefore, also," says he, "we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power; that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God, and the Lord Jesus Christ."*

Let the scope and tendency of this blessed prayer be regarded in all its bearings, and the sum and substance of it will be found for the leading points of doctrine, what is here meant to prove, namely, that God, in His Trinity

2 Thes. i. 11, 12.

of Persons, is alike engaged in acts of grace to His people: that it is with Him to fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness it is His to confirm the work of faith with

:

power: His to count his people worthy of his calling; and, as the whole originated in His pleasure, so the termination is to His praise. Let the reader observe, in this short but comprehensive prayer, how much the Apostle dwells on that grand fundamental doctrine of the whole Gospel, namely, the Covenant of God in this momentous concern. Twice Jehovah is called in it our God, as if to show that the whole Persons in the Trinity are alike engaged, and have guaranteed to each other for the accomplishment. And, not content with saying it is the Lord's pleasure to do so, but that he will, in doing it, fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness,-yea, and Himself fulfil the whole. And that this our God would count His Church worthy of this calling, refers not to their worthiness, but their worthiness in Him: his worthy name, as the Apostle James speaks, by which they are called. So that it is not from what they are in themselves, but what they are counted in Him; not what they merit, but what His pleasure is to do for them; not their calling, but His. And the work of faith with power, is the Lord's power working faith in them; not their power working faith in themselves. "Unto you," it is said, “it is given to believe in his name;" and the result of the whole proves that, as the Lord's pleasure is the first cause, so His glory is the final end; "that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God, and the Lord Jesus Christ."

And now, reader, dwell on the whole of this subject; and, under the teachings of the Lord, ask yourself whether any doctrine can be more clear than the one here brought before you, namely, that the Lord's pleasure in His people is the source of all His purposes in Christ Jesus towards them; and, consequently, that this must be the culminating point of blessedness to the Church, both during the time-state of grace here, and in the Eternal state of glory hereafter.

Under such views as these, what a mystery is the doctrine of grace!—what a mystery is the Church of the Most High God!—yea, what a mystery is every child of God to himself, when, by regeneration, he is made a partaker of the Divine nature, having "escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust!" That God, from all Eternity-who was, and is, and to all Eternity must necessarily be, so unspeakably blessed and glorious in Himself, and to whom nothing, in a way of blessedness, can be added, and from whom nothing can be taken— should condescend to raise up a Church from His creatures for communion with Himself, and to call that Church His portion-all which can be resolved into no other cause but the Sovereignty of His will and pleasure. "The Lord taketh pleasure in his people."

Go one step farther, and ponder what is said of the ordination of Jehovah in the accomplishment of it, namely, that it is to exalt and magnify the free grace of God. The Holy Ghost, in a single verse of his Sacred Word, hath declared this to be the cause, namely, that, in the "ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ

Jesus."* Hence it follows, that if this be―as the Word of God declares it is the Sovereign, free, and unmerited grace of God, and that this is the motive in the Divine mind, for which God has gone forth in such manifestations of it towards His creatures; to derogate from this grace, and to ascribe a single act of merit in any who are the objects of such love, as a predisposing or a corresponding cause, can be no other than high treason to the Majesty of Heaven. Various may be, and various will be, the views and apprehensions of the human mind, respecting secondary and subordinate things in religion. We are, at the best, but in the minority of our being in this life; and, as children under education, we know all that we do know but as "through a glass darkly," and the medium through which the great objects are seen, very frequently gives a tinge of colouring in which they appear. But in respect to grace, this admits but of one and the same complexion to every beholder. All is of grace: all the events which fall to the lot of the children of God, from the beginning to the end of their pilgrimage, can be but of grace. The positive and unalterable language of the Gospel is-"Ye are saved by grace, through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."† Hence, in allusion to the spiritual temple, it was said, in the Old Testament dispensation, and the New Testament doctrine confirms the same, that "the head-stone of the building should be brought forth with shoutings, crying Grace, grace unto it."

One word more here, and that, according to my view, not an unimportant one, namely, the whole Church of