THE

PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1856.

Miscellaneous Articles.

A VINDICATION OF THE SOVEREIGN FREE GRACE OF GOD.

BY JONATHAN DICKINSON.*

ROM. 9:16. "So then not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy."

THE great Doctor of the Gentiles is, in this chapter, by irrefragable arguments, defending the sovereignty of God, and the absolute freeness of His grace, against all cavils, objections, and opposition. In our text he is exploding all confidence in the flesh, all hope in or trust unto our own sufficiency or excellence, either of will or deed. (Not of him that willeth, &c.) A text that wounds Arminianism under the fifth rib. If we consider the words we shall find notable,

1. The impotency of our wills (not of him that willeth). The natural bent of our wills is to evil, and only to evil continually, and without the saving influence of the insuperable grace of God, enlightening the mind, renewing the will, and changing the heart and affections, our wills are (and can but be) obstinately and resolutely going after the gratification of our lusts and sensual appetites. Our wills, as all other the frailties and objections of the soul, are (by our apostasy) depraved, and put out of square; the renovation whereof is the execution of Christ's kingly power. Psal. 110 3. "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power."

*We give another sermon of President Dickinson, the subject of which is God's Sovereign Free Grace. The manuscript was presented by a descendant of President Dickinson to Dr. James W. Alexander, and by the latter to the Rev. John Miller, who is a great grandson of the President. It is hoped that our brother Miller will deposit the manuscript with the Presbyterian Historical Society.-ED.

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2. The deficiency of our best doings, and our utter inability to purchase our own salvation. (Nor of him that runneth.) The words. seem to allude to the running in the Olympian, Isthmian, or Nemean games (in use among the Grecians); where by the swiftness of running they won the crown or garland set up in the end of the race. But though it would be our duty to run if we would obtain the crown, though a diligent course of duty is the only way wherein. we may hope for salvation; yet the crown of glory shall not be conferred upon any for their running, nor upon the account of anything they do or can do. Nec volenti, nec volanti.

3. The only cause, origin, and foundation of our eternal salvation, viz., the mere grace of God. (But of God that showeth mercy.) The whole transaction of our salvation, from the first corner-stone unto the perfection thereof in glory, is a continued series of free and sovereign grace.

Hence observe this

DOCTRINE. That the whole transaction of our salvation proceeds from the sovereign free grace of God, and not from our depraved wills, or imperfect performances.

A truth, than the which nothing is more insisted upon or incul cated in the oracles of God; nothing more impugned or spoken against by the enemies of the Gospel. A truth that contains the very vitals of our holy religion, and, therefore, worthy our peculiar notice and regard.

This observation may be something illustrated by speaking to these three propositions..

Prop. I. The whole transaction of our salvation proceeds from the sovereign free grace of God. The Apostle very sententiously sums up the scope of the Gospel, in Eph. 2: 8,-"By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." And the Church of England, in one of their homilies, clearly lay down this doctrine.

"But that although we have faith, hope, charity, repentance, dread and fear of God, within us, and do never so many good works thereunto, yet we must renounce the merit of all our said virtues and good deeds, as things that be far too weak to deserve remission of our sins, and our justification; and, therefore, we must trust only in God's mercy, and that sacrifice that our High Priest and Saviour, Jesus Christ the Son of God, once offered for us upon the cross.'

This proposition may be more distinctly considered in these par

ticulars:

1. Nothing but the displaying and magnifying the riches of free grace was the foundation of the eternal covenant of redemption. What other motive could there be in the breast of the eternal God to make a covenant with His chosen, to give unto our glorious Messiah a chosen number to be vessels of mercy, and heirs of eternal blessedness? Or what other motive could our Lord Redeemer have to undertake the station of a surety (as styled Heb. 7 : 22),

to stand in our place and stead, to undergo and bear off from us the shock of revenging justice, but the making illustrious his sovereign free grace? It is true that the choosing some and rejecting others of the same lump of clay, was an act of sovereignty, and not of mercy nor justice. But the contriving such a way (in the glorious covenant of redemption) for the bringing a number of ungrateful rebels from an estate of foreseen misery and perdition, to an estate of glory and happiness, was for the eternal display of free (because undeserved), distinguishing and sovereign mercy.

All the truths in God's blessed book find opposers. The Covenant of Redemption also (as well as other essential articles of Christianity) is controverted and ridiculed. Strange, indeed, when it is so abundantly confirmed from clear and full evidence in the word of God. We read in John 6: 37, of those whom the Father has given to Christ. It is written in Tit. 1: 2, "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." It is plainly expressed in Psal. 89: 3, "I have made a covenant with my chosen.' To the same purpose is that, Isaiah 49: 8, "I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant to the people." It is written in Eph. I: 4, "That we are chosen in Christ." The like evidence we may find from many other Scriptures. And the Church of England in their Homily of Salvation do bear their testimony that this first corner-stone was laid upon the sovereignty of free grace.

"The great wisdom of God (say they) in this mystery of our redemption, hath tempered his justice and mercy together; his great mercy hath he showed unto us in delivering us from captivity, without requiring any ransom to be paid, or amends to be made on our parts, which whereas it lay not in us that to do, he provided a ransom for us, which was the most precious body and blood of his own most dear and best-beloved son, Jesus Christ." But

2. Our essential vocation flows likewise from the mere grace of God. An eternity is short enough to adore and praise the riches of that grace, that "has called us out of darkness into marvellous light; that has translated us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's own Son;" that "has quickened us who were dead in trespasses and sins," and "made us partakers of the heavenly calling.'

We are naturally under the power of spiritual death, and what but omnipotent grace can make us alive from the dead? We are by nature fallen into a gulf of infamy, where inevitable and eternal perdition awaits us, if Infinite Grace reaches not forth his hand and helps us out. Oh, the riches of that adorable grace, that knocks off the fetters of our miserable thraldom to our spiritual enemies, and brings us into the glorious privileges of the sons of God! Oh, the wonders of that astonishing love that "breaks down the middle walls of partition; that stays the enmity between offended justice and provoking sinners; that brings us nigh to

God, and makes us one with him through his own blood." Eph. 2: 13, 14, 15. What but mercy exceeding as well our conception as desert, "makes us meet to partake of an inheritance among those that are sanctified." Justly does the apostle ascribe this renewing and livemaking work of the Spirit of God, to the riches of his mercy. Eph. 2: 4, 5: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for hist great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by grace ye are saved." And the Church of England in their 17th Article most truly say, "That the predestinate are called, according to God's purpose, by his Spirit working in due season, and through grace obey the calling."

3. The saints and children of God shall, by his mere grace, persevere and hold out unto the end. Those for whom Christ has died, and shed his most precious blood, shall surely partake of all the benefits of his redemption, and be brought to the fruitions of that inheritance, that (at so dear a rate) he has purchased for them. John 6: 37, "All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me, and those that come unto me shall in nowise be cast out." Justification and glorification are inseparably linked together. Rom. 8: 30, "And whom he justified, them he also glorified." "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom. 8:38, 39. "None shall pluck Christ's sheep out of his hand." John 10: 28.

"They shall be kept by the mighty power of God through faith unto salvation." 1 Peter 1: 5. Wonderful grace! That the justified children of God, though conflicting with, and often foiled by, an indwelling body of death, all the malice of the powers of darkness, and the ensnaring vanities of a sinful world, shall nevertheless win the field at last, "and become more than conquerors." Rom. 8: 37.

I know there are such that oppose and cavil against the doctrine of perseverance; they allege that the daily falls and sinful errors of the best of men evidently contradict their perseverance in grace. They plead in opposition to this doctrine, that, Ezek. 33: 13, "When I shall say to the righteous he shall surely live; if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered: but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it:" thence they argue that a man may fall from saving grace. This reasoning is very corrupt, for (1), though the children of God may fall into repeated transgressions, and thereby bring heavy strokes of fatherly chastisement upon their heads, yet they cannot fall from a justified state, nor become the objects of God's hatred and vindictive displeasure; this is clearly and fully evidenced in Psal. 89: 29, 30, 32, 33: "His

seed also will I make to endure forever. . . If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from them," &c. And (2) for the clear understanding the text (improved by some to countenance their opposition to this preserving grace of God, and the comfort of the saints), we must consider that righteousness is used in a various sense in the Sacred Scriptures: there is the imputed righteousness of Christ, whereby a sinner is made righteous in the sight of God; and this is of an eternal and unfading permanence, as appears from the beforementioned Scriptures. And there is a righteousness which is a man's own, "which does arise from a man's own reason or will, improved by common grace or education, or awed by fears, or swayed by interest, or maintained by some failing spring that may easily be drawn dry, and of such the prophet speaks.' Very plain and true is the 5th Article of Lambeth upon this point: this point: "A true, lively, justifying faith, and the sanctifying Spirit of God, is never totally or finally extinguished, does not fall away, or come to nothing, in those that are once made partakers thereof."

4. The children of God shall be crowned with eternal glory, to the everlasting praise of infinite free grace. Such that might justly have been firebrands in the unquenchable flames of an eternal hell, shall forever be crowned with "an exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Such that were born under the condemning guilt of original sin; such as have perpetrated multiplied actual transgressions; such as have been emphatically sinners, monsters of iniquity, sinners of the blackest dye: there shall be even such as these freed from deserved vengeance, "and made partakers of an inheritance with the saints in light." Herein is the Lord manifesting himself to be "the Lord, the Lord God, gracious and merciful." Exodus 34: 6.

Herein is the riches of God's free and marvellous grace magnified. Herein is the display of mercy never to be enough adored, admired, and praised; "the breadth and length and depth whereof passeth knowledge." Eph. 3: 18, 19. Thus the 17th Article of the Church of England: "At length by God's mercy they attain to everlasting felicity."

(Remainder in October.)

THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT VINDICATED IN RESPECT TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES.

IN the history of the Old Testament, there are some things recorded, in relation to God's dealings with the Jews, which infidels have triumphantly alleged as objections against its credibility, and which have appeared to many serious minds difficult to reconcile