Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Anfw. Unto the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day, Prov. iv. 18.

Queft. 3. What is the fpring, or caufe, of the believer's growth?

Anfw. Union with Christ, and participation of vital influences from him, John xv. 4. Col. ii 19 Queft. 4. Why is it jo ordered, that believers fhall grow in grace?

Anfw. Because there is a particular ftature, at which every member of the myftical body is appointed to arrive, Eph. iv. 13.

Queft. 5. How doth growth in grace flow from JUSTIFICATION?

Anfw. In as much as the justified perfon is delivered from a legal incapacity to grow, and is made free and unfettered for the fervice of God, Pfal. cxvi. 16. Gal. v. I.

Queft. 6. How doth it flow from ADOPTION? Anfw. In as much as the fincere milk of the word is defired by the new-born babes, that they may grow thereby, 1 Pet. ii. 2.

Queft. 7. How do it flow from SANCTIFICATION ?

Anfw. In as much as the image of God, drawn upon the foul, is, in fanctification, carried on to a nearer conformity, till we shall be perfectly like him, when we shall fee him as he is, John. iii. 2. Queft. 8. Do believers grow in grace at all times ?

Anfw. They have a principle of growth, the feed of God remaining in them, I John iii. 9.; but they do not grow at all times; they have their winters, wherein the influences of grace, neceffaty for growth, are ceased, Song ii. 11. and v. 2.

Queft. 9. Whence is it that the believer's growth ceafes at any time?

Anfw. Faith being like the pipe, that received the oil from the bowl to each lamp in the candlestick,

Zech.

Zech iv. 2; if that pipe be ftopt, or the faint's faith ly dormant and inactive, then all the rest of the graces will also languish and decay, Pfal. xxvii. 13.

[ocr errors]

Queft. 10. How is growth in grace revived after the languishings and decays thereof?

Anfrv. The pipe of faith remaining still at the fountain, as a bond of union betwixt Chrift and the foul, the Lord Jefus clears this mean of conveyance, and then the influences for growth flow, and the believer's graces look fresh and green again, Hof. xiv. 7. They that dwell under his fhadow fhall return, they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine.

Quest. 11. Since the tares have their growth as well as the wheat, Matth. xiii. 26. how shall we diftinguish betwixt the growth of hypocrites, and the growth of the true Chriftian?

Anfw. The diftinction lies in the nature of the growth the growth of the true Christian is regular and proportionable in all the parts of the new man; it is a growing up into him in all things, which is the head, Eph. iv. 15.: whereas hypocrites, when they get more knowledge into their heads, get no more holiness into their hearts, they may be more taken up with the externals of religion than formerly, and yet as great strangers to the power of godliness as ever, 2 Tim. iii. 5.

Queft. 12. What are the several ways in which believers grow at once?

Anfw. They grow inwardly and outwardly ; upward and downward, Ifa. xxxvii. 31.

Queft. 13. How do believers grow inwardly? Anfw. By uniting more clofely to Chrift, and cleaving more firmly unto him as the head of influences, which is the fpring of all other true Christian growth, Eph. iv. 15.

Queft. 14. How do they grow outwardly?

Anfw. By

Anfw. By being fruitful in good works in their life and conversation, Tit. iii. 8.

Quest 15. How do they grow upward?

Anfw. In heavenly-mindednefs, and contempt of the world, Phil. iii. 20. Our converfation is in heaven.

Queft. 16. How do they grow downward ?

Anfw. In humility and self-abasement: the branches of the largest growth in Chrift, are, in their own eyes, less than the leaft of all saints, Eph. iii. 8.; yea, the chief of finners, 1 Tim. i. 15.: they fee that they can do nothing, 2 Cor. iii. 5.; that they deferve nothing, Gen. xxxii. 10.; and that they are nothing, 2 Cor. xii. 11.

Queft. 17. May not Chriftians mistake their cafe, by measuring their growth in one of these ways, exclufively of the rest of them?

Anfw. Yes: if, for inftance, they measure it upwards, and not at all downwards; for, though, a Chriftian may want the fweet confolations and flashes of affection, which fometimes he has had, yet, if he be growing in humility, felf-denial, and a fenfe of needy dependance on the Lord Jefus, he is a growing Chriftian, Hof. xiv. 5. I will be as the dew unto Ifrael; he fhall-caft forth his roots as Lebanon.

Quest. 18. When believers cannot perceive their growth, how may they know if they have true grace at all, however weak ?

Anfw. If they have any measure of felf-loathing on account of fin, Ezek. xxxvi. 31.; if they have a defire of grace, Neh. i. 11.; if they prize Christ above all things, Phil. iii. 8.; and if they love his members for his fake, 1 John v. 1.

Of PERSEVERANCE.

Queft. 1. What is meant by PERSEVERANCE in Anfw. A con

grace?

Anfw. A continuing ftill in the fate of grace, and the habitual practice of godliness to the end, John X. 28.

Quest. 2. Can none who are juftified, adopted, and fanctified, fall totally and finally from grace?

Anfw. No: they can neither fall totally from all grace, nor finally without recovery; for those that thou gavest me, fays Chrift, I have kept, and none of them is loft, John xvii. 12.

Queft. 3. How is the perfeverance of the faints infallibly fecured ?

Anfw. By the immutability of electing love, Jer. xxxi. 3; by an indiffolvable union with Chrift, Rom. viii. 38, 39; by the merit of his purchase, I Pet. i. 18, 19; by the prevalency of his interceffion, Luke xxii. 32; by the inhabitation of the Spirit, John xiv. 16.; and by the power of a promising God, I Pet. i. 5.

Queft. 4. What PROMISE, among others, have believers for their perfeverance in grace to the end?

Anfw. They have that remarkable promise, in Jer. xxxii. 40.-----I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me.

Queft. 5. What fecurity have believers by this promife?

Anfw. They are fecured on every fide; both that God will never caft them off, and that they shall never defert him.

Queft. 6. What is the ground, in law, upon which believers are fecured, that God will never caft them off, and that they fhall never defert him?

Anfw: Chrift's perfeverance in obedience unto the law for them, till the condition of the covenant was perfectly fulfilled, whereby their perfeverance was purchased, and infallibly fecured, Phil. ii. 8. Tit. ii. 14.

PART I.

A a

Quest. 7.

Queft. 7. Do all who make a zealous profeffion of religion perfevere therein?

Anfw. No: many of them fall away afterwards, John vi. 66.

Queft. 8. What may we conclude about the fe who fall totally and finally from their profeffion?

Anfw. That they were never in reality what they profeffed themselves to be, 1 John ii. 19. They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would, no doubt, have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifeft, that they were not all of us. Queft. 9. What are the chief branches of the promife of perfeverance ?

Anfw. A promife of continued influences of grace, and a promise of continued pardon for the fins of the believer's daily walk, Ifa. xxvii. 3. Jer. xxxiii. 8. Queft. 10. Why is a promife of the continued influences of grace neceffary?

Anfw. Because the stock of inherent grace would foon fail of itself, it would wither away, and die out, if it were not fed, John xv. 6.

:

Queft. 11. Why is a promife of continued pardon neceffary to the perfeverance of faints already juf tified?

Anfw. Not as if there were any need of new pardons with refpect unto their state, because none of their fins can bring them any more under the guilt of eternal wrath, Rom. viii. 1.; but only with refpect to the fins of their daily walk, which bring them under the guilt of fatherly anger, Pfal. lxxxix. 30, 31, 32.

Queft. 12. How is the pardon of the fins of the daily walk granted unto believers ?

Anfw. Upon their renewed actings of faith in Jefus Chrift, and of repentance towards God; yet not For their believing and repenting, but for Chrift's fake, even as the first pardon is given, 1 John ii, 1, 2. and i. 7. Quest. 13.

« AnteriorContinuar »