PART IV.

ON THE DIFFERENT DEGREES IN GRACE.

I SHALL here pass by the unregenerate world, and confine my observations to the men of grace. Among these there are the greatest varieties that are any where to be found; no two exactly alike among all the thousands of Israel. There is a gradation of excellence which we are not able to trace; it is known to God alone. We know that there is a prodigious distance between the weakest believer and the highest saint, and that Christians rise in gradation from the mustard seed to the great tree from the first dawn of light to the perfect day, and from the first breathing after Christ to the perfect man. Christian believers are like the rounds in Jacob's ladder, which had one end standing upon the earth, and the other reaching up to heaven. But for the sake of some method, I shall range them into four divisions, viz.— Those that have nothing like assurance of salvation; those that earnestly seek after it; those that have attained to it; and those that arrive at full assurance of faith and hope.

I.-And first, of those that have NOTHING LIKE

assurance.

As far as appears, a great number belong to this class. With regard to any high attainment, they walk in darkness and have no light. Though the sun is risen upon them, yet they know not for certainty whither they are going to heaven or to hell. In such a state of things, there must be some great negligence and defects: for they are under the same means of grace, and enjoy all the privileges which others have, who triumph always in Christ Jesus. It is very desirable to know why they continue under such guilty uncertainty respecting their everlasting salvation. It would be difficult to trace this subject thoroughly, and shew all the causes of their uncertainty. We shall therefore only allude to some of the most common causes that keep these Christians from knowing that they are Christians, who are on their way to the kingdom of heaven. The causes of this ignorance of their state, though numerous, may be reduced into these two. They live too little on Christ by faith, and live too much on other things, through unbelief and the corruption of their hearts. 1. They live far too little on Christ through faith. Many of those that have obtained mercy, too seldom have their eyes fixed on the Saviour. He is not their habitual study, therefore they know but little of him. How very seldom do many of our brethren retire from the noise of earthly things to meditate on the glory of

Christ, on his redeeming love, and the unsearchable riches of his grace. As they do not make Christ their constant study, they can feel but little attraction to him. While they who know and love the Lord well, are for ever crying, "Draw me, draw me, and we will run after thee," careless professors seem half contented to live at a distance from Christ, while they enjoy the world. Nothing is so injurious to the souls of men as to continue ignorant of the glory of Christ : for no other knowledge can ever draw our affections from earth to heaven. So long as we are strangers to this holy attraction, we can have no communion with Christ; and without this holy communion, there can be no assurance of salvation: for it can proceed from nothing short of a spiritual intercourse with the Saviour. There must be a holy commerce kept up, or we shall never feed on the bread of life, never lean on the arm of the Lord, and never commit our souls to his care, and trust in him for salvation. While men neglect these necessary things, it will ever be in vain for them to expect any thing like assurance of eternal safety.

Those who live so little on Christ through faith, are not spiritually-minded, nor do they even aim at any high state of spirituality; but content themselves too much with the body, without the soul of religion -rest too much satisfied with the outward performance of duties, without soul communion with God. They seem to aim at little more than to have an orthodox creed, a moral life, and a name to live. They do not strive to have the same mind, and the same spirit, as was in Christ Jesus. They wear the robe of reli

I

gion without the power of godliness. "To be spiritually-minded is life and peace." But Christians of this low degree have but little life or peace. When they think of death and judgment, their spirits are sad, their hearts tremble, and their hope is faint. Their religion resembles a dead corpse rather than a living man. What assurance of heaven can such men expect? It may be well said of these, carnal and not spiritual; " ye are babes that have need of milk, and not of strong meat. These are at the foot of Jacob's ladder. They may be learned, after the manner of men, but they are foolish and ignorant, in the things of God.

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Ye are

And when men are low in spirituality, they have no energy, no diligence and no earnestness in their devotion. So far from striving to enter in at the strait gate, and pressing into the kingdom, that they lie down to slumber, and settle on the lees, till God comes to empty them from vessel to vessel." So far from mounting up as on eagle's wings, they rather resemble a dead picture on the wall, always in the same place. To every one of this sleepy company we may cry, What meanest thou, O sluggard, arise and call upon thy God.' "Woe be to them that are at ease in Zion," and slumber in the day-time, and mind religion as a minor concern instead of the one thing needful. We need not wonder to find these drowsy and indolent Christians under the greatest uncertainty of salvation, and trembling for fear of judgment.

2. As this lowest class of Christians live too little on Christ by faith, so they live too much on other things, through unbelief and the corruption of their nature.

They are too much alive to the LAW. They profess indeed to believe that righteousness is not by the law; "for by the deeds of the law no man can be justified before God." Yet for all this there is in fallen nature a strong propensity to cleave to the law for righteousness. Those who are saved by grace, are strictly enjoined to love and obey the moral law as a rule of life, and therefore they are not willing that their obedience should be wholly excluded in their justification before God. Their souls are not wholly weaned from the covenant of works, and this keeps them in legal bondage, strangers to the liberty which is in Christ Jesus. So long as we trust to what is in ourselves, instead of to what is in the Saviour, we must continue in bondage, and strangers to all assurance of salvation; for we can never find satisfaction in ourselves. We must, every one of us, "become dead to the law by the body of Christ," or continue in spiritual bondage.

They are too much alive to the WORLD. God saith expressly, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The very sound of this text is enough to make the hearts of tens of thousands that profess true religion, tremble and quake for ther own salvation. For what is there more common than to see professors running eagerly after the world, and greatly neglecting the duties of religion, settting up their idols in their hearts, and forgetting the Lord their maker! What greater offence can be offered to the Lord, than giving him a divided heart, which every one is doing whose heart is gone