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themselves we may trace fome footsteps, and discover at a diftance fome glimmering Rays of this glorious Truth; which forc'd fo noble an Expreffion as This from One of their Philofophers, who had no Light but that of Reafon and Nature, that alluding to the Fabulous Transformations of their fancy'd God, when he defign'd to make the World, Transform'd himself into Love. What but Love and a defire of Communicating his Own Goodness could move God, who from all Eternity was Happy in Himself, who neither ftood in need, or was capable of receiving any addition of Blifs or Glory from any Creature, to produce out of nothing either Angels or Men to be partakers of his Over-flowing Fullness? and to command into Being this admirable Frame of Heaven and Earth for their Use and Enjoiment? All this must be allow'd to have been from the free and unbounded Grace of God.

But it is not of this Undeferved Favour of God in making us after his Own Image, tho that is just matter of Adoration and Praife, but the more ftupendous Love in renewing us from what we had made Ourselves,that the Grace mention'd in my Text, is to be underftood. The Grace, not by which we are Created, but the Grace by which we are Sav'd. For we are to take Notice that there are two

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forts of Grace (or rather Grace converfant about two forts of Objects) in God. The One fimply Beneficent, the other Merciful too. The firft of thefe, which is Purely Beneficent, is that which God had from Ever. lafting in himself towards the Creature, even before his being fo, when he had yet no Existence but in the Eternal Wifdom of Him, who calleth things that are not as tho they were, Rom. 4. 17. For from his Grace, as well as to his Glory, and for his pleasure all things are and were Greated, or which he in time exercis'd to the Creature actually produc'd into Being, and ftill remaining Innocent and therefore Happy. The Other which is more than barely Beneficent, including Mercy as well as Love, is That which God makes use of towards the Creature finful, and confequently Miferable. For all the Good that the Almighty Goodnefs affords the most Pure and moft Holy, the Brightest and Perfecteft Being in Earth or Heaven is of free Grace, fince He owes them Nothing of all that He gives, and They on the contrary Owe wholly and entirely to Him whatfoever they receive. That which plac'd the Angels in Heaven, that admits them to fo near access to his Perfon and the full Contemplation of his Glory, that maintains them in their Original In tegrity, and honours them with the Con

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fidence of his Secrets and the immediate Execution of his Commands, is nothing else but Grace, fince nothing without himself could oblige him to raise those Blessed Spirits to that height and excellence of Glory, which renders them the first and most noble Intelligences of the whole Creation. That which made Man but little Lower than the Angels and Crown'd him with Glory and Honour, that by which God feated Adam in Paradife and gave him Dominion over the Works of his hands, that which conftituted him his Reprefentative and made him as it were a Vifible God upon Earth, was meer Grace, fince it was in God's Power and wholly at his free difpofal whether he would at all produce him out of nothing, or if he were pleas'd to do fo far, whether he would raife him to fo great dignity or place him in the Rank even of the meanest of thofe Creatures which he put under his Feet. And fhould Adam have perfever'd in that original Righteoufnefs wherein he was Created, yet all the Happiness he would have then poffefs'd,would have been nothing elfe but Grace, fince he ow'd not only all he had, but all that he was, to God, and could receive nothing from Him, but as a gift from his undeferved Bounty. But ftill this would not have been Mercy, fince Man never having offended God, God could have

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had no occafion of exercifing that Divinest Perfection, the very Crown of all the Bleffed Attributes in the Deity, that moft fweet, and liberal, and tender, and amiable Goodness that delights in forgiving Sinners. Divines therefore have diftinguish'd Grace into Creating and Saving Grace. Creating Grace is that by which God has given à Being to the Angels with all the incomparable Privileges belonging to their Heavenly Nature, and Life to Man with all the glorious Prerogatives with which he was at firft invested. Saving Grace is that by which he raises us from our fall, has given us his Son, confers upon us his Spirit, pardons our Offences, and brings us to his Kingdom.

As we cannot fufficiently value, nor by thought conceive, nor by words exprefs this ineftimable Saving Grace; fo we cannot without horror and fhame and confusion of face reflect, how foon God's firft Creating Grace was repay'd by his Creatures with Apoftacy and Rebellion, and as a juft Confequence of that, how foon that Noble Creature, whom he had made but a little lower than the Angels, was reduc'd to a Condition much worse than that of the Beasts that perib. Divefted of all Original Righteoufnefs, darken'd in his Understanding, Perverfe in his Will, diforder'd in his Affe

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ctions, a Captive and Slave to the Dominion of Sin and the Tyranny of Satan, obnoxious to all the Miseries and Evils of this prefent Life, and, what is the most dreadful of all, juftly hateful to God, and the Object of his Infupportable Wrath, and by that concluded under the Sentence of Everlafting Death, and the Torments of Hell to all Eternity. This was the fad Estate not of Our First Father only, but of all Us his numerous and wretched Offspring. And in this most deplorable Condition, when we lay, like Ezechiel's wretched Infant, polluted in our Blood, when no Eye pity'd Us, then this Saving Grace, this Love of God pass'd by Us, and faid unto Us, Live, yea faid unto Us, when we were in our Blood, Live, Ezek. 16. 5,6. Which fhews, how far this Goodnefs of Redemption furpaffes that of Creation. In the Creation indeed there was no Object to invite, much less to deserve, but neither was there any thing to hinder or obftruct the Divine Goodnefs. Tho' there was no Worth, there was no Unworthiness. But the Object of Redeeming Grace was the Wretched and Unworthy. There was not only in our Nature an Absence of all Good, that might move the Divine Compaffion, but there was a pofitive Malignity againft that God that should pardon, against that Chrift that should fatisfy, against that

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