from the introduction of the gospel, whether relating to this life or the next, including of course the healing of the mind, and deliverance from the power and consequences of sin.

The following are some of the interpretations, which the clause in our text has received.

1. There are many, who understand by the proposition, by grace are ye saved, that man can do nothing towards his own salvation. By grace, they understand a supernatural operation of the divine spirit, which effects a change in the moral nature of a man, toward which his own exertions contribute nothing; and where this change is effected, salvation is certain, and thus God is not only the ultimate source, but the sole and immediate agent in the production of goodness in moral beings.

This, in technical language, is the doctrine of human inability. It represents the moral state of man to be such, that he can do nothing to save himself from ruin; for, if it were otherwise, his salvation, it is said, would not be of God, but of himself.

In this statement, it is obvious to remark, that though there is a sense, and a very just one, in which man can do nothing without God, it cannot be regarded as any derogation from the grace or glory of God, to admit, that man can do all, that God enables him to do. God governs and treats his moral creatures in a moral way; and it would seem to be charging God with folly or contradiction, to say that he offers men means and motives to virtue, while he has provided them with no capacity to use the one, and no susceptibility of the influence of the other, without his own immediate and extraordinary operation. To a plain man, there is no greater mystery in our dependence on God, in the affair of religion, than in any other. We are to be saved, indeed, by grace, as by grace we are, every moment, preserved from natural and moral ruin; that is, by the goodness of

him, who gives us our powers, and appoints us our circumstances.

Others, on the contrary, to avoid the perversion, to which the interpretation just stated is exposed, and by which christianity has suffered, think, that they sufficiently answer the meaning of the apostle, when they admit, that man is not saved, either by his own exertions, or by the operations of divine grace alone, but by the concurrence or co-operation of God's spirit with human endeavours. Thus they suppose, that grace, by which they mean spiritual influence, is communicated to all good men, in answer to prayer, or in consequence of human endeavours, and especially in seasons of great temptation, trial, necessity, or peculiar infirmity; and yet always in such a silent manner, as not to be distinguished from the natural operations, or ordinary state of our minds. Thus, say they, we are truly saved by grace, because, if left to ourselves, we could not work out our salvation, but should, infallibly, sink in the arduous undertaking. In this way they propose to avoid the difficulties, attending the doctrines of human merit or ability on the one hand, and those of human inability and irresistible grace on the other; while their adversaries say, that they only unite, in one unintelligible scheme, the real difficulties of both. Perhaps the principal advantage of this mode of interpretation is, that it seems to allow sufficient meaning for the various phraseology of different passages of scripture, while it leaves the real metaphysical difficulty of man's dependence and activity as inexplicable as ever, and as much open as before to the disputations of those, who wish to penetrate into the secrets of the divine influence on moral agents.

There is yet another class of christians, who conceive, that men are said to be saved by grace, because the introduction of the christian religion, by which men are prepared for salvation, or a state of future

happiness, is a singular instance of the grace or undeserved favour of God. It is a proof of his care, to which mankind had no claim, and of which they had no previous desert. It was God's grace or favour only, which originally appointed Jesus the mediator, and sent him into the world; it is God's gratuitous or unmerited kindness, which provides the means of reformation and recovery offered us by christianity, which gives the promise of pardon to the penitent, establishes the hopes and wishes of immortal life. It is in consequence of God's favour, that we are born under this dispensation; and if we attain, at last, to the salvation, which it offers us, by grace only do we reach this felicity, because it is pure goodness, which originally furnished the means.

In all these interpretations of the clause, by grace ye are saved, you may have observed, that it is taken for granted, by the different parties, that the apostle refers to the final salvation of those, to whom he is writing; but it is at least doubtful, whether this is here the meaning of the apostle, You well know, that the term, saved, is used to express any kind of deliverance, temporal or eternal; salvation from danger, from disease, from miseries of various kinds, from intellectual darkness, from doubt or despair, from habitual corruption, from present condemnation, and from everlasting punishment. When Peter, in the name of the apostles, cries out, in the midst of a storm, Lord save us, for we are perishing, every one understands him to mean, deliverance from the imme. diate danger of shipwreck. When our Saviour disI covers in the sick woman a remarkable confidence in his power of curing her, and other dispositions worthy of his favour, and says to her, Go in peace, thy faith hath saved thee, no one imagines him to mean any thing more than this, to your faith you owe the recovery of your health. So when the jailer, alarıed by the earthquake, and fearful that his prisoners

had escaped, rushed into the presence of the apos tles, crying out, Sirs, what shall 1 do to be saved? the best interpreters understand him to mean, how shall I best consult my safety; and when Paul says in reply, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and your family shall be saved, he not only includes the idea of present security, but extends the meaning of the word to embrace the spiritual benefits, which would follow from his reception of the christian doctrine.

If now we examine the meaning of the apostle in the clause before us, we shall find, that he cannot here refer to the eternal salvation of those, to whom he is writing. He says of them, that they are now saved, not that they will be saved hereafter. Here is an actual and present privilege, and not the unconditional promise of a future benefit. That the Ephesians had not then entered upon the heavenly felicity, it is unnecessary to prove; they could not, therefore, be then saved, in the sense, in which we commonly use the term. Neither is it probable, that the apostle meant, they had been made subjects of an irresistible and effectual grace, from which they could never fall; that their final salvation was as certain, as if they had actually entered upon it; for though we may believe, that there would not be an impropriety in figuratively saying, that they were saved, who had only an infallible security of being saved, yet we cannot find, that this was the idea of the apostle, or of the early interpreters, but only a fiction of later theologians. No! the apostle's meaning cannot, perhaps, be more exactly expressed in English, than in these words, by God's unmerited favour are ye delivered. If it is asked, from what the Ephesians were delivered by the grace of God, I answer, from the ignorance and wickedness of their former heathen condition. This is the only salvation intended in the passage under

consideration; their final salvation still depended on the use they made of the new light, the new motives, and the new means, which they enjoyed, for virtue and happiness.

In support of this interpretation, let me refer you to the words, which precede the text, and to the whole strain of this epistle. On what does the apostle continually insist? Does he say, you are now secure of an eternal salvation, and, therefore, you have no conditions of acceptance to perform? Far from it. The whole tenour of his exhortation is this: By God's favour you are delivered from the darkness and miseries of your idolatrous state. Ye were sometimes darkness, but now ye are light in the Lord. Walk, therefore, as children of the light. The blessings, you already possess, are but the pledge and foretaste of those, which the same grace will bestow on you hereafter, if you walk worthy of God, who hath called you to glory and virtue.

If any one, in consequence of the explication, we have given of this passage to the Ephesians, should accuse us of diminishing the grace of God in the final salvation of believers, and of encouraging the obnoxious plea of human merit, let such person first know whereof he speaks, and what he affirms. We believe, and so must every christian, that if any of us reach at last, under Jesus Christ, the blessedness of his heavenly kingdom, it will be through the grace or gratuitous goodness of God, whose grace alone introduced the christian dispensation, whose grace has fixed the terms of acceptance and forgiveness in mercy, and not in the rigour of law, and, finally, whose grace alone could have offered a reward, so infinitely transcending the deserts of the believer. Salvation, under the gospel, begins, proceeds and terminates in grace; and although we do not believe, that it was the apostle's intention, in this particular