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the blessings flowing from it are the exprefsions of God's eternal delight and complacency in his beloved ones. The whole doctrine of it, as recorded in the word, is one grand display of the love and bounty of the THREE PERSONS in the one ever blessed JEHOVAH towards the elect. It declares how freely God loves them. It sets forth how he bestows every blefsing of his love on them out of his hearty good will unto them, and how he continues the blefsings he bestows with the same everlasting good-will both in time and eternity; hereby proving that they are "The "blefsed of the Lord who made Heaven "and earth." The influence and efficacy of divine grace on the mind of the believer are divinely quickening and powerful; and there is a rich variety of exprefsions made use of in the volume of inspiration to set this forth. The communication of spiritual and eternal life being the immediate consequence of union with the person of Christ, believers are said to live through him, sometimes by him, and at other times on him; and sometimes Christ is said to be their life, to live in them, to be in them. Even our Lord in the sixth chapter of John's gospel sets himself before us as the giver of life, and also as the giver of the bread or meat which en

dures unto eternal life,-as that bread which came down from Heaven, the proper sustenance of spiritual and eternal life; and as sent into the world by the Father for that very purpose. He hath the words of eternal life. The exercises and actings of spiritual life are all under his immediate direction and in

fluence. The preservation, continuance, growth, and increase of it in its acts and exercises are wholly from him. By his Holy Spirit he carries on all the operations of grace in the souls of his people: and as they are the objects of his love and mercy, so he fulfils in them all the good pleasure of his will agreeably to what he hath uttered in his most precious promises. Hereby he promotes spiritual growth and vigour in their souls. It is an everlasting truth, that it is wholly impofsible that a regenerate person should be kept alive to God and his Son Jesus Christ in heart and affections, let him be already favoured with ever so great and supernatural a knowledge of and communion with the Father and the Son, unless the Holy Ghost be pleased continually to give new light and life to the mind by setting home afresh with his own divine unction, power, and energy, what is known. Hence in the soul's real experience it is found, that though divine

truth dwells in the mind, yet the person is shut up, and remains dull, barren, and low in spiritual activity, notwithstanding what is already known hath been received through the channel of regeneration and from the word and spirit, except the same truths receive a fresh light, life, and influence from the Holy Ghost. If we be kept alive to God, if the Lord Jesus be increasingly precious to us, it must be owing to the Holy Spirit's opening the mind to perceive fresh glories and perfections in him and his great salvation, and to his giving us such apprehensions of the Father's love in him as exceed all ever before discovered.

As it respects Growth in Grace, it consists in growing into a greater acquaintance with ourselves, with Christ and spiritual things, and in growing out of ourselves into CHRIST, rooted, grounded, and settled in him. This will appear if we consider those scriptures which treat of it, the promises which refer to it, and the prayers offered for it to the God and Father of our LORD JESUS CHRIST. That spiritual growth consists in growing into a greater acquaintance with ourselves appears from the case of Paul, who, as he learnt to know himself and the grace of God exercised towards and bestowed on him, styles himself "The "least of the apostles," "Lefs than the

"least of all saints," and "The chief of "sinners." This was the fruit of his high advancement in divine fellowship with Jesus.

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In treating on this subject, Growth in Grace, and in shewing what it consists in, and how it is manifested, I will briefly cite some scriptures which treat of it, the Lord's promises which have immediate reference to it, and take a view of the apostle's prayers for it, which by God's blefsing will lead us to right apprehensions of the subject before us. I will begin with Peter's words, “Grow "in grace. I conceive that by grace here all those faculties, graces, habits, and dispositions, which are wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, are to be understood. And to have our spiritual faculties, graces, habits, and dispositions exercised distinctly and supernaturally on their proper objects and subjects is to grow in grace, agreeably to this apostolic exhortation. What follows in the text is explanatory of it; "And in the "knowledge of our Lord and Saviour "Jesus Christ." He is the object, on which all our graces are to be exercised. He is the life of all our grace. Therefore growing into a greater knowledge of him and of the Father's love in him is to grow in grace; for hereby all our graces are quickened, strengthened, ex

ercised, and drawn forth to the praise and glory of God. It is of vast importance on this subject to know that all apostolical exhortations, as also the apostolical prayers on divine record, are founded on divine promises, in which the interest of the Holy Trinity in the elect is included. Paul, speaking of spiritual growth, says to the Ephesians, "But speaking the "truth in love may grow up into him in "all things, which is the Head, even "Christ: from whom the whole body

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fitly joined together and compacted by "that which every joint supplieth, ac"cording to the effectual working in the "measure of every part, maketh increase "of the body unto the edifying of it"self in love." Here the relation of believers unto Christ is stated. He is the Head, and they have union and relation to him as members of his mystic body. And in these words it is exprefsly affirmed, that as in the natural body, there are supplies of nourishment and natural spirits communicated from the head unto the members by the subserviency of all the different parts of the body, designed for that purpose, to the growth and increase of every part; so from Christ, the Head of his church, there is a supply of spiritual life, strength, and nourishment administered unto every member of the Eph. iv. 15, 16.

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