Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n
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A33361
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A discourse of the saving grace of God by ... David Clarkson ...
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Clarkson, David, 1622-1686.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing C4573; ESTC R12535
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66,518
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170
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God. Nay sinners would persist in the height of this Enmity and therefore reject all motions of Reconciliation tho' the Lord condescend to beseech them with all moving arguments to be reconciled 2 Cor. 5. 20. They despise Salvation and the means that tend to it They manifested it by crucifying the Lord of Life when he came on purpose into the world to bring Salvation Come say they this is the Heir Mat. 21. 38. We cannot reach the Father he is too far above us but we have a fair occasion to shew how well we wish him This is the Heir here is his Son his only Son the Son of his Love and Delight come let us kill him and so they did and so would other Sinners do if they were in the same circumstances with those that did it And there are those who Crucifie again the Lord of Life And what do we less in venturing upon ways of sin since this is it which first crucified him This is the desperate disposition of all Sinners in the state of nature We had so continued to Eternity if the power of Grace had not broke in upon us and drawn us to terms of Reconciliation And this being our State and temper naturally can you think there was any thing in us that could have moved the Lord to save us What can Hatred such desperate Enmity such prodigious Malice against the Lord move him to love us O if free Grace had not moved it self we had persisted in our opposition against the Lord and had been eternally miserable as those deserve to be who are found fighters against God and open Enemies to him There are other Demonstrations that Salvation is of Grace only which may be drawn from God himself the consideration of his Allsufficiency Soveraignty 1. The Allsufficiency and independency of God. He stood in no need at all of man either for Happiness or Glory the least degree of either He had been eternally as happy as glorious if man had never been or been ever miserable 1. In respect of Happiness He was perfectly infinitely happy without us He did not expect he could not have the least Degree of it from us All degrees all Fulness of it was in himself before we had a being The Divine Understanding was infinitely pleased and satisfied in the Contemplation of himself the first Truth The divine Will took infinite contentment and complacency in the injoyment of himself the chief Good. The Object here was infinite and glorious Excellencies and the Acts were infinitely perfect and the Issue thereof must needs be infinite Happiness both formal and objective Christ the Eternal Wisdom of the Father thus expresseth it Prov. 8 22. 30. Here are the mutual delights of the Father and the Son those injoyments which hold forth the highest degree of Happiness before any creature had being The Son was the Fathers Delights 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 daily every moment without the least intermission and rejoyced the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was laughing before his face Those happy souls who are already admitted into the glorious Presence may guess tho not comprehend what happiness there is in those delights we are in the dark and can neither express nor conceive how much it is but tho we cannot conceive how great that Happiness is we may easily apprehend that it cannot be made greater by any creature Besides Happiness must arise from Union with some good or the injoyment of it Now all Goodness in Perfection is included in the divine Being and whatever good is in the creature it is but an imperfect participation of that Primitive Goodness or rather but a dim resemblance of it And shall we think that there can be any addition to his Happiness from that which is so imperfectly without him when all Excellencies are perfectly eminently infinitely in himself Shall the Ocean of Blessedness seek an increase from that which is less than a Drop Or the Sun of Glory borrow lustre from a Glow-worm a dim Spark Or the Universe of all Happiness greaten it self by a Point a Mote No the Lord was Blessed for ever before man was in being and he had been Blessed for ever if man had never been And if nothing had moved the Lord to save him but a design to add to his own Happiness none of the Children of men had ever known Salvation 2. In respect of Glory The Lord does not depend upon man more for Glory than Happiness He had been as Glorious if we had continued in the State of Non-entity or if we had Perished in our Sin and sunk into Misery It 's true we say the Lord glorifies his Mercy in our Salvation but this is such a Glory as he might have wanted and yet have been no less Glorious To clear this a little The Glory of God is Essential or Relative Gods Essential Glory is those infinitely glorious Perfections and Excellencies which meet in the Divine Essence This is that Glory which no mortal eye ever saw or can see When Moses desired to see his Glory the Lord says to him Thou canst not see my face and live Exod. 33. 18 20. The â—ace is the Seat of Beauty where all the lines of Perfection do concenter where all the rays of Glory are united These we can no more behold in his face than a lump of Snow can sustain the united vigor of the Sun-beams at noon day When the Queen of Sheba had seen the Glory of Solomon it 's said there was no spirit in her 1 King. 10. 5. The Soul or Spirit in her as in others has a strong inclination to unite with that which it apprehends to be most good and beholding something transcendently better without than in the Body seemed willing for that time to leave the Body that it might enjoy and close with what was more excellent If the Lord should unvail himself and let us have a clear sight of his glorious Excellencies as they shine in himself the Soul would leave the Body the Union between them would be dissolved the spirit would be wrapt away with such a sight and leave the Body dead This may be the reason of what the Lord said to Moses No man can see my face i. e. my Essential Glory and live Further the Essential Glory of God is God himself and therefore both Infinite and Eternal It is Infinite as he is and to that which is Infinite nothing can be added it can no way be greater than it is already It is Eternal too and so before any thing was created and consequently no way dependant on the Creatures By which it is manifest that essential Glory is not at all increased by working mans Salvation For Relative Glory that indeed depends on the Creatures But the Lord had been as glorious in himself if this Glory had never been as will appear from the Nature of it The essential Attributes of God are his divine Perfections absolutely existing without respect or relation to
Strength from Grace to enable it The other Branch makes all the Gracâ— they own to be fruitless of no effect â— meer Cypher which stands for nothing does can do nothing but at the descretion of Free-will For the Will when the Object is propounded with what advantage soever the Proposal be made can always resist and reject it utterly So that the Grace of God comes to nothing at the meer humour of mans Free-will By the former Branch of the Will 's sufficiency the Power in matters of Salvation is from Free-will and not from Grace for their Grace gives it no Power at all but supposes it there already By the latter Branch the Act in the concerns of Salvation is from the Will not from Grace For Grace leaves the Will indifferent to act or not to act and therefore its acting is no more from Grace than its not acting its accepting of Christ no more from Grace than its rejecting him Now if both the Power and the Act in the concerns of Salvation be from Free-will and not from Grace then it is by Free-will not by Grace that we are saved III. Let us view the Import and dangerous Tendency of this Doctrine and then you will see sufficient Reason to reject it Every particular will be an Argument against it and the particulars are very many 1. They make no Grace needfull but what was acknowledged by those Persons who were condemned by the Ancient Church as Enemies of the Grace of Christ Pelagius the Patriarch of the Asserters of Free-will to the prejudice of Divine Grace acknowledged not only a Natural but a Doctrinal Grace viz. the Word of God discovering and propounding that which is good and perswading Sinners to embrace it suadet omne quod bonum est it perswades to all that is good Here 's the swasive Grace of his Modern followers Nay he went further and not only required an external Proposal of the Object in the Ministry of the Word but acknowledged an inward Operation of the Spirit for inlightning the Mind and exciting the Affections Nos ineffabili dono gratiae coelestis illuminat He inlightens us with the unspeakable Gift of his heavenly Grace futurae gloriae magnitudine praemiorum policitatione accendit He inflames us with Promise of Rewards and the greatness of the future Glory and excites the stupid Will by the Revelation of Wisdom to Desires after God. Some of his late followers think it not fit to come short of him in this but seem to require some act of the Spirit to inlighten the Mind and to stirr up the Affections But others of them most applauded and followed deny all Necessity of any immediate Illumination by the Spirit and tell us That every one who has the use of Reason may without any special inward Light very easily apprehend whatever in Scripture is necessary to be known or believed Episcop And that no immediate Operation of the Spirit De Perspicuit Script thes 1. 3. upon the Mind or Will is needful for any one that he may Believe Id. in Syn. Dor. p. 200. So that no Grace is needfull with these men but only an external Proposal by the Word for what the Word propounds may without the Light of the Spirit be sufficiently understood and offered to the Will and the Will they say has unquestionably power to embrace whatever is so offered by the Understanding If any thing could hinder the Will from embracing the Good proposed it must be some Corruption in mans Soul some strong Prejudices or vicious Habits determining the Will unavoidably to that which is evil but no such thing can be admitted as they state the Wills liberty For as no power of Grace no Operation of the Spirit can determine the Will irresistibly to that which is good but when it has done its utmost the Will remains free to the contrary evil so no power of Corruption can determin the Will to any evil but it will remain free to choose the contrary good propounded to it The Will of fallen Man notwithstanding any supposed Corruption in the Soul native or acquired still retains its primitive Power intire only it is under some Impediment as to the Exercise of it there is one thing wanting which hinders it from acting it cannot act without an Object And this signifies no defect or weakness in the Will for the most perfect Faculty of Man or Angel in Heaven must have aâ— Object that it may act Now the Object is offered in the Gospel and the Proposal oâ— the Object by the Gospel with the Motives and Arguments there contained iâ— all the Grace all the supernatural Aiâ— and divine Assistances which they thinâ— requisite to help the Will to believe and turn to God. This is to ascribe less tâ— Grace than the old Pelagians did who yeâ— were branded by the Church as the capital Enemies of supernatural Grace anâ— upon that account scarce thought worthâ— to be called Christians 2. By their Doctrine Grace is giveâ— according to Merit This was the most leprous part of Pelagianism which the ancient Church had in â— greatest detestation and for which Pelagius himself had been Anathematized branded with the highest Censure by a Synod in Palaestin but that he pretended to renounce it Yet Merit in the sense of that Age was a far less thing and much more tolerable than the Papists merit of Condignity It was not only a good work of such value and worth in it self as that a Reward should be due to it in Justice but Merit as they understood it was any good act which a man did of himself upon the account of which Grace was vouchsafed This Bellarmin himself acknowledges however he was concerned to deny it The Fathers says he understood Grace to be given according to Merit when any thing is done by our own strength in respect whereof De Grat. libr. arbit l. 6. c. 5. Grace is given altho' it be no Merit of Condignity And in this sence of Merit the modern Asserters of Free-will would have all Grace given according to Merit How universal soever they make Grace to be yet no man shall have it unless he merit it That Grace may be Universal they will have it communicated both to those that are without the Gospel and to those that enjoy it For those who have not the Gospel he is ready to give all of them the Grace of the Gospel if they will use the Light of Nature well and he does give it actually to those who by the good use of their Free-will make such an improvement of natural Light. Here the good use of natural Light is a good act and upon the account of that the Grace of the Gospel is given i. e this Grace is given according to Merit in the sense of the Fathers who counted it so execrable to have it given according to Merit Those say the Remonstrants whom God calleth and to whom he does vouchsafe the Grace of