An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

Now there are two sorts of dispensations from God, which further the salvation of believers.¹

Now there are two sorts of dispensations from God, which further the salvation of belivers.¹

1. 1Two sorts of dispensations from God which further the salvation of a believer. 1. The direct means appointed by God for this end.

1. There are those things that are means instituted and appointed by God, and so do directly and genuinely tend to save them; and these are the Ordinances, the Ministry, the preaching of the Word, and the Sacraments. These do in Gods way wonderfully promote the salvation of those that are rightly exercised therein. Hence you heard, that the preaching of the Gospel is called Salvation, because it doth so directly work thereunto; and those who fear God, do find these Ordinances very powerful for their salvation. They are like the saws and hammers, that did prepare and polish the stones to be fit for the building. So that to be deprived of these, to be denied these, is even to be deprived or denied salvation it self: Only when we say, they are means instituted to procure salvation, You must not think there is any intrinsical virtue in these, as the Lutherans speak about the Word preached; or as the Papists about the Sacraments, working salvation, as Physic doth health by a natural causality: No the Apostle tells us, That in some it is not the Word of life, but of death, 2 Cor., 2. 16. It's to some people as the Ark to the Philistines, because not used aright, it becomes their further damnation.

1. There are those things that are means instituted and appointed by God, and so do directly and genuinely tend to save them; and these are the Ordinances, the Ministry, the preaching of the Word, and the Sacraments. These do in Gods way wonderfully promote the salvation of those that are rightly exercised therein. Hence you heard, that the preaching of the Gospel is called Salvation, because it doth so directly work thereunto; and those who fear God, do find these Ordinances very powerfull for their salvation. They are like the saws and hammers, that did prepare and polish the stones to be fit for the building. So that to be deprived of these, to be denied these, is even to be deprived or denied salvation it self: Only when we say, they are means instituted to procure salvation, You must not think there is any intrinsecal vertue in these, as the Lutherans speak about the Word preached; or as the Papists about the Sacraments, working salvation, as Physick doth health by a natural causality: No the Apostle tels us, That in some it is not the Word of life, but of death,