A47542:661
A golden mine opened, or, The glory of God's rich grace displayed in the…
A golden mine opened, or, The glory of God's rich grace displayed in the mediator to believers, and his direful wrath against impenitent sinners containing the substance of near forty sermons upon several subjects / by Benjamin Keach.
London: printed by the author, 1694
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. Life and Salvation is of Grace in opposition to Nature, we have it not as the Product of Nature: Which were born, not of Blood, nor of the Will of the Flesh, nor of the Will of Man, but of God. To 1be born, signifies to receive a Principle of Life; and those that are the Children of God, have not that spiritual Life that is in them, from the Motions or Powers of Nature; not from the Power of Man's Will, nor from their fleshly or natural Parts and Abilities, however improved.
2. Life and Salvation is wholly of Grace, or a free Gift, in opposition to Merit; we cannot purchase or procure it by our Acts of Obedience: By Grace are ye saved through Faith, and that not 1of your selves; it is the Gift of God: not of Works, &c. Not by Works of Righteousness which we have done, but according to his Mercy he saved us. Not the desert of our Works, let them be what they will, either before or after Grace, but from God's own sovereign Mercy and Goodness, whose Bowels yearned towards his Elect in Misery: For the Wages of Sin is Death; but the Gift of God is Eternal 2Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Death Natural, Death Spiritual, and Death Eternal, are the Wages and Desert of Sin: ⟨p. 148⟩And who will deny a Servant his Wages? Wicked Men are the Servants of Sin, and they shall have their Wages. But though Death is the Wages or Merit of Sin, yet Eternal Life is not the Wages of our good Works; no, but the Gift of God, through the Righteousness of Jesus Christ: It is not by our Works, or for our Worthiness. The Apostle, as our Annotators note, varies the Phrase, on purpose to show that Salvation is wholly of God's Grace, and not of our own Merits: 'Tis of Grace, or the Gift of God through Jesus Christ, that is, through his Merits, De gratia & libero arbitrio, saith Augustine.