B

SERMON XIII.

Of the GRACE of GOD.

PHIL. ii. latter part of the 12th,
and the 13th verse.

Work out your own Salvation with
Fear and Trembling; For it is
God which worketh in

you,

both

to will and to do, of his good

pleasure.

T

HERE is no one Queftion S ER M.
in the whole Syftem of Di- XIII.
vinity, which has raised
greater Controverfies in the
Church of God, than That

concerning the Extent of the Grace of

God

SER M. God and the Power of Man. Some, in XIII. order to vindicate God from being the

Author of Sin, have been fo follicitous to maintain the perfect Freedom of Men's Faculties, and their Liberty of choofing Good or Evil, that they either have, or have been thought to have, diminished from the abfolutenefs of the Sovereignty, or from the Efficacy of the Grace of God. They have been thought, I fay, to diminifh from the Grace of God. For whether they have really done fo, or only by their Adverfaries been reprefented as doing fo; is not very evident. In almost all Controverfies, what Men Say for Themfelves, and what their Adverfaries infer or reprefent them as faying, are generally two very different things: And they who will not be at the pains to confider diftinctly what each fide alleges for itself, but will judge of Either by the character or reprefentation made of it by the Other only will for ever be led into erroneous judgments concerning Men and Things, and continue unavoidably igno rant of the True State of the Matter in Question, whatfoever it be. Whether therefore

therefore They who in Antient Times SER M. were reprefented as Deniers of the Grace XIII. of God, were rightly charged with fo doing or no, does not certainly appear; becaufe the Ground of that charge, was only their afferting the Freedom of the Will of Man; which though their Adverfaries judged to infer a Denial of the Sufficiency of the Power or Grace of God, yet perhaps They Themfelves faw no fuch Confequence of it. However That be; 0thers, in the contrary Extreme, that they might be fure not to afcribe too little to the Efficacy of the Divine Grace, have fuppofed men to have no natural Powers at all of Acting or Willing, no Use of the original Faculties given them at their Creation, no Liberty of Will or Freedom of choice, in matters of Morality and Religion. By which Doctrine they have confequently, (even themfelves feeing and acknowledging the confequence,) introduced an abfolute Neceffity or Fatality upon Men's Actions. From whence it follows, in the next step of deduction, (though This indeed they are not fo willing to fee;) but in Truth it does neceffarily and

unavoidably

SER M. unavoidably follow; that God himself, XIII. and not Man, will be the Author of

Sin.

SOMETHING not unlike to This, has happened in another Question concerning the Liberty of the Will of Man, and the Prescience or Foreknowledge of God. Some, confidering that without Liberty of the Will, there can be no Religion, no Virtue or Vice, no juft Punishment or reasonable Reward, have, in order to remove an Objection which they judged would otherwise lie hard against fo important a Truth, denied, or feemed to deny, God's Foreknowledge of future and free Events. Others on the contrary, intent upon magnifying the Glory of the Divine Attributes, and follicitous to lecure the including all poffible future Events within the Compass of God's Foreknowledge, have affirmed all the Actions of Men to be Neceffary and Determined abfolutely, by a Chain of certain and unalterable Causes. The Confequence of which unavoidably is, that Man in reality is no more capable of Morality or Religion,