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SERMON XXIII.

SALVATION BY GRACE.

EPHESIANS, ii. 8,-10.

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

In these three verses of St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians we have set forth, in a short and summary form, the leading doctrines of the Gospel of Christ, and in their order.

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By grace are ye saved," says the Apostle; "it is God's gift" — by grace, i. e. by God's mere mercy and goodness. Now it is clear that, with regard to the state of salvation in which we are placed, it is altogether of God's mercy that our position is what it is. It is of God's grace only that, after man fell, any way was provided him for recovering himself from the fall. Our first parents were not in a condition to originate any such remedy —nor did they. God, of His own mere goodness, unsolicited, gave the woman the promise that "her seed should bruise the serpent's head." She did not, could not devise the promise; God volunteered it of His own mere will and motion. It was of God's grace only, that Christ Jesus came down from heaven, and took

flesh, and fulfilled that promise; mankind of themselves had no more means of drawing Him down, than they have of drawing down the sun. It was of God's mere grace that He appointed sacraments, by virtue of which Christ's merits are conveyed to us; for man could not have invented sacraments for himself; he could not have endowed them with efficacy-with that efficacy, which, if they wanted, Baptism would be only water sprinkled, and the Supper of the Lord bread and wine eaten and drunk. It is of God's mere grace that any one of us is born in a Christian land. What control had you or I over the place of our birth; and why might not we have been born in Africa instead of in England, save that it was God's mere pleasure that it should be as it is - for the casting of our lots is of Him? "Wherefore it is not on account of any works done before the grace of Christ," as our Church says in her nineteenth Article, "that men are made meet to receive grace or deserve grace," but they obtain it of God's gift, not of themselves.

Nevertheless God does not mean to exclude man from having any share in effecting his own salvation. It would not be reasonable that He should; for it is quite evident from everything we see around us, that man is set in this world to be put to the proof. And it would not be agreeable to Scripture to suppose that man is to have no share in saving himself; for if so, what mean such texts as "Work out your own salvation," "Strive to enter in at the strait gate" "Watch and pray "— "Be not weary

in well-doing," and a multitude of others of the same character? Man therefore is to have some share, to take some active part, in saving his soul alive; and that which is required of him is faith —faith in Christ; the instrument this whereby he can apply Christ's merits to himself. "By

grace are ye saved through faith," is the representation of the text; the grace God's, the faith man's; though not so much man's, but that God has His part in this too; for Scripture teaches us to beg of God to "increase our faith," as though its increase was still of Him and it is an office of the Spirit to "convince the world." Still a man's faith is partly his own affair; for we find Jesus, when on earth, perpetually addressing Himself to those about Him on the supposition that they had some control over their own faith. "Fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole," said Jesus to the ruler of the synagogue who besought Him for his daughter. "Said I not unto thee, if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of God"-was Jesus' address to Martha before He raised her brother. "Have faith in God," said He again to His disciples, when they were remarking on the withered fig-tree, as though it was in their power to have faith. And "faith" again we are told "cometh by hearing "—and certainly it is in our power to hear. And "if ye believe not Me, believe the works,” is our Lord's argument; meaning that His miracles were such as must and ought to establish a faith in Him, in any man who would apply his understanding to the nature of the testimony they bore. So that it certainly appears that man has something to do in the matter of his own faith; and that it is with himself to cherish it, by hearing God's word, by considering His miracles, and by resorting to Him, with a view to it, in prayer. I say thus much to show that though we are saved by grace, as God's gift, and not of ourselves, God does find something for us to do still, and if we do it not He withholds the gift.

But there is nothing in this principle of faith which leads us to boasting-quite the contrary; for faith implies dependence upon God, not upon ourselves, and the more

faith we have, the more of this dependence do we feel the more and the more do we throw ourselves upon God for mercy and for everything—the more do we confess our own weakness and God's strength. It is not therefore a principle calculated to exalt but to abase a man in his own esteem; it will not puff him up but humble him; and in that respect it differs from the principle of counting our works meritorious. And accordingly, when the Gospel was preached at first, it was in proportion as men were humble, that they were believers. Did any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believe on Him? It was not amongst them that a principle of faith flourished, but amongst the poor and the lowly; amongst fishermen and publicans; amongst those who had no confidence in their own deservings, and so the more cheerfully threw themselves upon a Gospel which would save them by another way. Akin to these virtues of humility and dependence upon God is the principle of faithproductive of them, and produced by them; and therefore perhaps it is that God has honoured it, by the choice He has made of it for man's instrument, whereby to apply to himself the merits of His Blessed Son.

Not so, as I said, the principle of making works a meritorious cause of man's salvation. We are not saved upon that principle, says the Apostle in the text, "lest any man should boast." Such a principle would naturally lead to boasting. A man boasts of what he thinks he does by his own hand and arm in this world; aud it would be the same with him with regard to the next world. Indeed the thing proved so it is historically true. The Pharisees of old time, and the Roman Catholics of later times, have both been instances thereof. The Pharisees of old time, who held they were to gain heaven by their own exact obedience to the law of Moses, got to persuade themselves that there

And so

were no people like them. "I am not as other men are, thank God," was their language. "Thou wast altogether born in sin, and dost thou teach us?" i. e. us who are without sin, -was their boast to the blind man. much had the Romanists to boast of, that many of them were more than good enough to save themselves, and had merits to spare for other men; and so greatly had this spirit caused them to lose sight of the Saviour and the atonement through Him, that, in one of their churches in England, their offerings to a saint amounted to a thousand pounds in one year, whilst those to the Saviour, in the same period, did not amount to a penny. So fatal to dependence upon Christ, so fatal to humility of mind, is the principle that we are saved by our works, as a meritorious cause. "Wherefore," as another Article of our Church expresses it- and I cite the Articles to show how grounded on Scripture the doctrines of our Church are "Wherefore we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings."

But I have often observed to you, that if you will examine the Epistles of St. Paul, you will scarely ever find them uttering a strong text in assertion of justification being by faith only, without finding also, that he makes haste to couple it with another text requiring good works to be done nevertheless; though at the same time alleging the ground of them that they are not to be viewed as a meritorious cause of salvation, such as should make faith void, but as a condition of salvation, and as faith's fruits. He does so on this occasion. He had said, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." Then, as if some fear seized him lest this strong text should be abused, and