be given! " According to thine own heart hast thou done all this greatness, in making known all these great things." 1 Chron. xvii. 19. David speaks of the mercies which God vouchsafed to him: "O Lord, for thy servant's sake," or, as the Septuagint reads it, "for thy word's sake," namely Christ," and according to thine own heart." When God means to give, and to show forth his grace in giving, he consults with his Christ and with his own heart; and when he gives, he gives like the great God: “O Lord, there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee." When infinite wisdom, able to invent and devise what is best, and to study liberal things, shall unite with a power answerable; and both these shall be set in a heart full of all largeness, full of all bounty and generosity, that resolves to be gracious to the utmost of his wisdom and power; what may you expect? "He will give grace and glory, no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly," Psalm lxxxiv. 11. God surely knows all good things and the height of all blessedness ; and he plainly tells us, that he will not withhold any good thing; he hath a heart to bestow whatsoever is good, to bestow all the good he can think of.

The excellency of grace is also shown in that he giveth freely. The freeness of grace is the riches of grace. The fewer motives there are to move him, the more eminent his grace in respect to freeness. All that he doeth for his children is but "the fulfilling of the good pleasure of his goodness." Mercy and love may have something to move them in what is loved or pitied. But grace always imports such a freedom as is moved with nothing, but is merely out of the good pleasure of goodness; that is properly grace. For mercy will move to pity, and some good in the creature may move to love; but to be moved to be gracious, and to show riches of grace, that imports merely the good pleasure of his own will.

That God should be moved to punish men, as he hath motives within himself, anger, wrath, justice, and hatred of sin; so he hath external motives in the creature to stir them up. But for his grace, there is nothing but what is solely in himself, upon which grace doth terminate itself. Hatred in him hath sin in us; but grace hath nothing in the creature, but merely that it is capable of God's favour, and of being loved. And there is not only no worthiness, but nothing but unworthiness. Mercy respects misery properly; but it is grace only that respects stiff-neckedness and obstinacy, Deut. ix. 6. For what will mercy say? I pity one in misery, but as for this man he is wilfully miserable, and the fault lies in himself. But grace comes with sovereignty, and saith, Though he be stiff-necked, and though he be obstinate, yet " I have seen his ways and I will heal him." Isaiah lvii. 18.

And this favour is more than all he giveth or forgiveth, that he is pleased over and above all, to become a father, a husband, and a brother, and infinitely more transcendently than these relations are found among men. This is riches of grace indeed. When Saul had advanced David to be his son-in-law, to have that near relation to him, David accounted it more than all the rest of the favours. shown him. Now we have fellowship and communion with God, under all relations whatsoever. "Our fellowship,"

saith the apostle," is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ," 1 John i. 3. And therefore, saith he, chap. iii. 1. “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God;" to have so near a relation to him. This is exceeding riches of grace: this is more than heaven itself. The grace of God is so eminent and super-excellent, that it contents not itself in giving and in forgiving; in entering into all these relations; and to do all these freely too; but it will

be at a cost, at an extraordinary cost, to purchase all that which it means to give, and which it might give without that purchase. This is a strain, and the highest strain that can be thought of; merely because he would show forth super-eminent and super-excellent grace. When Araunah did offer unto David oxen and sheep to sacrifice, in 2 Sam. xxiv. 24, saith David," Nay, but I will surely buy it of thee at a price, neither will I offer burnt-offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing." He spake this because he knew that would be more accepted by God to make it a free-will offering, not to offer that which was given him, but what he must pay for. So it is with God: saith God with himself, "I could have saved these men, and have brought them to heaven; I could have entered into all these relations; I could have given them my Son to become a Redeemer and a Head for them, and so I might have become their Father; I could have given them my Spirit, and have given them grace and glory: I could have done all this immediately, and without any cost. No, saith he, I will be at a price: I will not show favour unto these men out of that which shall cost me nothing." He would needs give his Son to death, to purchase all that which grace could have bestowed, and bestowed without the death of his Son. And this he did, merely that he might show forth the more grace. Why? Because it is his own proper cost and charges he doth it at. And he triumpheth more that the grace he bestoweth cost him thus much.

Lastly. Here is "in Christ Jesus" added. For all God's kindness, and all his grace towards us, it is in Christ. It is an infinite magnifying of the Lord Jesus, that he alone being in heaven, is able enough, and worthy enough, to take into his possession all the glory, and all the grace, that ever God means to bestow upon his children. Had not he been a person

answerably glorious, we could not have been said to "sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," or, that the riches of his grace should be shewn in his kindness towards us in him. But so great a person is Jesus Christ, God and Man, that as the sun, if there were ten thousand stars more to be created, and the heavens to be filled with them all, there is light enough in the sun to enlighten them all; so there is in Christ. And therefore, my brethren, never think to set up without this Lord Jesus Christ. Do not think that he only serves to bring you unto God, and there leave you: no, he will never leave you to eternity. All the kindness that God shews you to eternity, it is in Christ Jesus.

Another meditation which ariseth from the interpretation of these words is this, you see the apostle makes these Ephesians, and other primitive Christians, to be patterns to all ages to come, How com

fortable is it to see how God hath fulfilled this promise. I confess this, that the reading of the writings of the men in all ages, hath always filled my heart with this comfort, that not only I see that God in all ages hath kept the fundamentals of Christianity that should save men, but that in all ages he hath still had a handful who have professed his truth, and held forth his name, and have cleaved to the doctrine of free grace. We see, my brethren, how this promise hath been fulfilled; and in our age we see how the virtue of this very promise and prophecy, which the apostle here gives, in the preaching of the gospel, and shining forth thereof from under the darkness of Popery, which had mingled with the grace of God, abundance of corruption, even well nigh to the overthrowing of it; I mean so to overthrow it as men should not have been saved, but that God did preserve so much truth as might save them, even under those corrupt opinions, whilst not held against light. We, that

live now so many years after Christ, see this very promise and prophecy here fulfilled. God engaged himself that in the ages to come, the riches of free grace should be laid open; and, lo! he hath performed it. And to our comfort we see wherein the main of reformation lies; it lies in opening the doctrine of the substantials of salvation; concerning the estate of man by nature; the work of conversion; and the privileges we have in Christ. It lies in clearing the doctrine of free grace and the way of faith, which lays hold upon it, "by grace ye are saved through faith;" as it follows afterwards. We see the truth of this prophecy riseth up more and more to view, in the latter ages of the world, and we enjoy the fruit of it more clearly and fully than our fathers did: and God will never leave till he has brought his saints and children to that first pattern, to that doctrine of grace, in the purity and perfection of it, which was then taught.

Again: what is it that God will expend upon us in heaven? He will expend upon us the " exceeding riches of his grace." The exceeding riches of God's grace must be laid out in something proportionable to it. If a king should say, 'Go, take all the riches in my kingdom, and expend it upon such an entertainment;' if the maker of the entertainment be faithful and wise, the entertainment shall be suitable to those exceeding riches that have been expended upon it. If we say that such and such a thing doth cost a man so much, we reckon it folly in him, that is the purchaser or procurer of it, at such a rate, if it do not hold some proportion to the cost. Now, then, if God will shew forth the exceeding riches of his grace, that happiness and glory that must hold a proportion to this, and come up to it, and be worthy of it-that entertainment which God himself is the maker of-and therefore he will not cast away any of his grace, but his saints shall have

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