ree grace.
O what a depth of unsearchable wisdom to contrive that lovely plot of
free grace. Come, all intellectual capacities, and warm your hearts at
this fire. Come, all ye created faculties, and smell the precious
ointment of Christ. Oh come, sit down under His shadow and eat the
apples of life. Oh that angels would come, and generations of men, and
wonder, and admire, and fall down before the unsearchable wisdom of this
gospel-art of the unsearchable riches of Christ!" And always pungent
Thomas Shepard of New England: "You shall find this, that there is not
any carriage or passage of the Lord's providence toward thee but He will
get a name to Himself, first and last, by it. Hence you shall find that
those very sins that dishonour His name He will even by them get Himself
a better name; for so far will they be from casting you out of His love
that He will actually do thee good by them. Look and see if it is not so
with thee? Doth not thy weakness strengthen thee like Paul? Doth not
thy blindness make thee cry for light? And hath not God out of darkness
oftentimes brought light? Thou hast felt venom against Christ and thy
brother, and thou hast on that account loathed thyself the more. Thy
falls into sin make thee weary of it, watchful against it, long to be rid
of it. And thus He makes thy poison thy food, thy death thy life, thy
damnation thy salvation, and thy very greatest enemies thy very best
friends. And hence Mr. Fox said that he thanked God more for his sins
than for his good works. And the reason is, God will have His name."
And, last, but not least, listen to our old acquaintance, James Fraser of
Brea: "I find advantages by my sins: '_Peccare nocet, peccavisse vero
juvat_.' I may say, as Mr. Fox said, my sins have, in a manner, done me
more good than my graces. Grace and mercy have more abounded where sin
had much abounded. I am by my sins made much more humble, watchful,
revengeful against myself. I am made to see a greater need to depend
more upon Him and to love Him the more. I find that true which Shepard
says, 'sin loses strength by every new fall.'" Have you followed all
that, my brethren? Or have you stumbled at it? Do you not understand
it? Does your superficial gin-horse mind incline to shake its empty head
over all this? I know that great names, and especially the great names
of your own party, go much farther with you than the truth goes, and
therefore I have sheltered thi