Grace: the truth and growth and different degrees thereof. The sum and substance of…Grace: the truth and growth and different degrees thereof. The summe and substance of…

2. Use is by way of exhortation unto these duties following.

2. Vse is by way of exhortation unto these duties following.

1. Dost thou receive all thy grace from Jesus Christ, then labour to be humble in the acknowledgement of this. Let the consideration and conscientious application of this doctrine, quell all boasting in us of any excellency received. Our wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification, ¹and redemption, are all from Christ, and therefore he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Consider, who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why didst thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? ²Who but a proud fool would magnify himself in that, which either another giveth him, or another hath done for him. We count it an odious pride and folly in a man to boast himself of that which another hath done. And therefore the Apostle professeth, that he did not carry himself as those false teachers had done, ⟨p. 188⟩who were crept into the Church of Corinth. saith the Apostle,³ We do not boast of things beyond our measure, that is, of other mens labours, nor boast in another mans line of things made ready to our hand. Now all grace is made ready to our hands, and is only the work of Jesus Christ in us, who worketh all our works for us. Ammianus Marcellinus tells us of one Lampadius, a great person in Rome, who in all parts of the City, where other men had bestowed cost in building, he would set up his own name, not as a Repairer of the work,⁴ but as the chief Builder. Such folly are they guilty of, who will set their own names before Gods, over the work of grace in their own souls. Oh remember that boasting is excluded by the law of faith. Faith is that grace which emptieth the creature of all its conceited excellencies,