---- CHAPTER II: What high regards the faith of the apostle Paul had to the free grace of God the Fa
given to teach self-love to serve its turn, and to run away with salvation, and let self do as it pleaseth. But the doctrine of free grace which we profess to salvation, is a principle of love to God above a man's self; there is that at the bottom. If it be so, then the more pure and clear you can bring this grace in the heart of God towards a poor soul, you move that man so much the more, you boil up grace to a height. If there be love and grace in the soul, and that grace be prevailing, it will work answerably, it will make the grace of God its greatest interest, because it is God's. We profess this is the principle of grace, and therefore to teach men thus to follow the grace of God is to teach them that principle that must be put into them by the Holy Ghost.
CHAPTER II
What high regards the faith of the apostle Paul had to the free grace of God the Father as the object of it.
How he magnifies and celebrates this free grace discovered to his apprehensions and thoughts.
I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exeeeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.—1 TIMOTHY 1:13, 14.
The Holy Ghost hath declared Paul 'a pattern' in his conversion 'to those that are after to believe,' 1 Tim. 1:16, and as a pattern of encouragement and hopes to the greatest of sinners that were to come after him, to believe. And so likewise in the very work of conversion he is proposed as an example also unto them, although he indeed at first attained unto that perfection therein which other converts are growing up unto in their whole lives. But yet the seeds of the whole being sown, and foundations laid in their first work, they
are springing up to a full growth throughout their whole lives. As every child that comes into the world by ordinary generation hath the same parts essential to mankind, both of the inwards of bowels and ventricles of the head, in a less size and proportion than Adam had, who was made a man of full stature by an extraordinary way of creation, and therefore had all in the full proportions of a man grown up to perfection, and also each part acting in their full vigour and activity from the first; so is it here, every convert receives all the same principles of faith and love at first, only the actings and increase thereof do in many things grow up into an actual energy, and yet so as at the first those principles do necessarily so far act in all converts as is requisite to put them into a state of life and salvation. And this, in the point of the actings of faith upon God and Christ for justification and salvation, is in a special manner seen; some men's spirits being more intensely carried out unto God the Father for grace and mercy, others more unto Christ Jesus for his righteousness, although whilst they act faith more upon the one or the other, they yet implicitly take in the other, whilst they look more on God's grace and mercy, yet so as they regard it in and through Christ, and è contra.
But our great convert here, in this narration of his conversion, is propounded unto us as an high example of faith drawn forth in an intense manner unto each, both the grace of God and Christ, in the most abounding workings of it. In the book of the Acts, we find an historical relation of the outward circumstances and manner of his conversion, twice related by himself. In this Epistle to Timothy, he acquaints us with the most intimate working, impressions, and sentiments of his spirit, and what principally his heart was taken up about at the time thereof, the sense whereof he retained unto that day; and these especially he utters in ver. 14: 'And the grace of our
Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.' He had begun to give solemn thanks to Christ (the great donor and endower of all gifts unto men, Eph. 4), ver. 12, for putting him into that office and dignity of the apostleship, and this from the time of his conversion. 'And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord,' says he,
'who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry,' which blessing he greateneth from the consideration of his having formerly been so great a blasphemer of Christ, and a persecutor of his new created Christian church, and professors of him: ver. 13, 'Who, 'says he, 'was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious.' But then, in the middle of that ver. 14, he proceeds more particularly to magnify the mercy and grace of his conversion for the salvation of his own soul, without which, though the grace of apostleship might have saved others, yet himself had proved a castaway, as was the case of Judas; that therefore is the great mercy which he centres in the following verses, and therein first (as I take it, and humbly submit it, together with this my analysis of the whole paragraph to ver. 18) he predicates the grace and mercy of God the Father shewn to him in and through Jesus
Christ; 'But I was bemercied,' says he, or was 'endowed with mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.'
Then, secondly, he magnifieth Jesus Christ for his mercy also in coming into the world to save him, the chief of sinners; ver. 15, 16,
'This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.' And then, lastly, he shuts up the whole with this solemn doxology, or giving glory to God the Father: ver. 17, 'Now, unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever.
Amen.'
And when he enters upon this narrative of his conversion, he at first useth a word somewhat uncouth, whereby to express the mercy of it, a word whereof in the English tongue we cannot give the full and proper force in one word (which the Greek itself is), I was
'bemercied' (if we may so speak), misericordia donatus,* endowed with mercy, encompassed with mercy. It is a like word unto that spoken to the blessed virgin, Luke 1:28, κεχαριτωμένη, 'gracioused,'
or one whom God's singular grace owned, embraced; and so here says the apostle, I was 'mercified,' 'endowed with mercy,' I had nothing but mercy, and was all over mercy. There was not only nothing of merit, but no fitness or any disposition in me towards it to make way for it, but the contrary; only there was a capacity, a possibility left of having mercy bestowed upon me (that was all),
'because I did it ignorantly,' says he, 'and in unbelief;' which imports that if he had pursued those injuriousnesses, and persecuted Christ and his saints, having first had a conviction of sight that accompany those actings, they had been that unpardonable sin, and would have rendered him incapable of all grace and mercy. And he useth this word this first time (for it is after also) in relation to God the Father's mercy then vouchsafed in calling him by grace (as he elsewhere says,
Gal. 1:17, speaking of the Father), which proceeded from his electing love, grace, and mercy towards him, which there, Gal. 1, you have also expressed in those words, 'When it pleased God, who had separated me from the womb'; (that that is an election-phrase, see
Æstius on the words, and others). And this separation of him had ordered all things all along from the womb about him, and in his course of life before his conversion had taken care to keep and prevent from falling into that unpardonable sin, upon the very brink of the pit whereof he had at last walked. And then 'called me by his grace,' says he there; the wonderful mercy of which he here also, narrating his conversion, celebrates; and indeed our first calling, as it is the breaking forth of election-grace and mercy, so it bears the image and pattern of it. I was then bemercied (says he), drenched, and covered all over with the abundant mercies thereof. It was poured forth upon my soul by wholesale, and on the sudden, and at once. This was the execution of election; and this first mention of this word I in my interpretation refer to God the Father's grace, to whom both calling and election are everywhere peculiarly attributed.
Now, observe how he again repeats the same word (for he useth it twice on this occasion and in this place, for he delighted in it and in the very thinking of it), and inserts it when Christ's part at his conversion comes to be related; ver. 15, 16, 'This is a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.'
Now in this verse 14 he proceeds to magnify this grace of God the Father, discovered at and in his conversion, with the highest elogy and epithets that could be given it—'and the grace of our Lord,' says he, 'was superabundant,'—and together therewith to acquaint us with the principal inward workings of his heart, and most intimate exercises and actings of his own spirit towards that superabundant grace that shined on him at his first conversion; and to declare with what entertainment or acceptation (as his word is, ver. 15) he received that, and took in that grace then discovered, he adds these words, 'With faith and love, which is in Jesus Christ,' which are the two graces that answer, by way of return and reception, unto the grace of God when discovered, and are exercised about, and act thereupon. He speaks not here of the work of his first humiliation for sin, which is the first work in all true conversions (though he hints that he had deep and thorough impressions that way, in saying, ver.
15, 'me, the chiefest of sinners'), but here he omits it, and mentions only the work of faith and love, the principal object directly acted upon being the free grace of God. And to set forth these actings of his soul thereupon I take to be his principal scope in this verse. The chiefest question about this interpretation is my referring those words, 'and the grace of our Lord,' unto God the Father, because the title our Lord is more frequently given to Christ, in distinction from the Father, and is given unto Christ in ver. 12 afore, and also Christ is only mentioned in ver. 15, 16 afterward. I find some interpreters, as Calvin and others,* on this 14th verse call it 'the grace of God,' without the mention of Christ here; and some others say gratia Dei in Christo, the grace of God in Christ, which still denotes the grace of God, though in and through Christ. And many of those that carry the words to Christ, yet ever and anon put in also 'the grace of God,' and,
as it were, could not forbear but to do it. But the reasons of my interpretation, which will also serve to solve the objection, are,—
1. Because grace is most frequently ascribed to the Father in the point of justification and salvation (which is the thing he speaks of here, as ver. 15 shews), and that in distinction from Christ, as out of Rom. 5 and chap. 3 may be observed; though also it is sometimes given to Christ, yet most usually, I say, unto the Father; even as the title of our Lord is sometimes given the Father, though more commonly to Christ, which solveth part of the objection. But besides, to speak more close to the point, those other places wherein Paul gives the account of his conversion, which I call parallels to this, and therefore argue from them as such, he still entitleth the grace thereof unto the Father. Thus Gal. 1:15, 16, 'But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen.'
And the very same you find, 1 Cor. 15:9, 10, 'For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.'
2. There did always rise up to me, in the reading of this scripture, a distinction, implied in the verse itself, of Jesus Christ from him whom he calls our Lord, to whom the grace is ascribed. 'The grace of our Lord,' says he, 'was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.' That last clause, 'and love which is in Jesus
Christ,' speaks of Christ as of another person from our Lord spoken of afore. He says not, 'and love unto Jesus Christ,' but in Jesus
Christ, noting that love of his to have been borne to some other person in and through Christ. And if so, then unto whom more properly than unto that person of whom he had immediately before spoken, and whose grace, he says, had been so abounding to him?
Which person must be the Father, if a person distinct from Christ; and so he speaks of a love returned unto him in and through Christ,
for his grace shewn him in Christ, as all the Father's grace is said to be, who hath chosen us in Christ.
3. Though he from thence runs the rest of his discourse upon Jesus Christ in the two following verses, 15, 16, magnifying him for his hand and mercy shewn in his conversion, yet in the conclusion he issues all in giving glory to God the Father, ver. 17, and as one not having words to set forth that grace any further, he chooseth to break off, and falls to adoring God the Father: 'Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.' Wherein he speaks in the usual style of doxologies given to God the Father upon such solemn occasions. Thus in the same Epistle we have it, chap. 6:15, 16, 'Who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, or can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.' Wherein this honour and praise is given to God the Father distinct from Christ, as by the comparing the last words of the verse afore it appears. Now this glory, thus solemnly given in this first chapter, all acknowledge to refer to the grace of his conversion before related, and so to signify him to have been the person whose infinitely abounding grace had done all this for him. He had begun to thank Jesus Christ, ver. 12, but he ends with glory to the Father; and in reason, that being the grand and solemn conclusion of this his narrative, it may well be thought that an express mention of the Father his grace therein should be found somewhere in the premises; and where else if not in these words of ver. 14? for all the rest did run wholly upon Christ. Yea, and if it be not there, then that of the mercy of God the Father is wholly left out, unless argued by way of inference, in this narrative of the greatest conversion that ever was in the world; and also that when he sets himself to celebrate the grace towards him shewn therein in words so high, as superabundant, &c., the like to which are not anywhere else to be found, unless in that Rom. 5:20, ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν ἡ χάρις, and there it is apparently spoken of the grace of the Father, in distinction from, though in conjunction with, Christ and his righteousness, as verse the last and
those afore shew. 'The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant,' ὑπερεπλεόνασε, it flowed over, or issued forth with an abundancy, yea, overplus; so in Rom. 5; it overfilled Paul, and ran over and over, as more than enough. He compares himself to a vessel (and we are styled vessels of mercy and grace, Rom. 9), into which, on a sudden, were poured forth from above spouts and floods by wholesale, that not only filled it brimful, but to a running over on every side. Yea, he speaks as if the windows of heaven, the flood-gates thereof, even of the heart of God, filled with that infinite treasury of love and grace towards him, had been set open, and had poured down the streams thereof into his soul.
The next inquiry may be, in what manner it is he intends that this grace of God had so superabounded, whether in the way of effects, that is, in so stupendous a work of converting so prodigious a sinner unto God, in implanting in his soul the principles of faith and love, and of the whole new creature, in one so confirmed and hardened in unbelief, and so resolute in such a violent fury against Christ and his saints; so that the abundance of that grace was demonstrated in so mighty and wonderful effects (which is all, or the main that interpreters here take notice of, as wherein this superabounding grace was seen), or whether withal he intends not to speak apprehensivè, that is, in respect of the discovery of that grace itself, as it was and had been borne towards him in the heart of God, and now broke forth upon his soul in and to his own apprehensions. To this query I answer, 1st, That it is true that the superabundancy of God's grace must needs have been discovered to him in so great and wonderful a change and work wrought upon him, for it was unparalleled grace to work it, and there was a just ground for him to adore it as he doth.
Yet, 2dly, In the knowledge of it barely by such effects, the cause itself remains hidden, and might still not have been known in itself, no
otherwise than in what is different from itself, for so the effects are from their causes; and such a knowledge is but secondary. And,
3dly, It would not have been said that the grace of the Lord had been over-full, or more than enough, in respect of the works of faith and love, for the works thereof themselves were yet imperfect in him; but we may say of the grace as it is in God's heart, and as it is apprehended and laid hold on by us, by immediate faith, that so indeed it superabounds, both as to what it hath wrought, and in all which it hath undertaken to work for us; and this is infinite, and stretcheth itself, and extendeth to all eternity. And this grace, thus taken in as it was by Paul (that chosen vessel, Acts 9), might well be deemed to be infinitely more than he could take in, and so to overflow, as hath been said.
But further, we may know that there is a flowing of the grace and love that is in God himself to men's souls in manifestation made by itself, and of itself, which the apostle calls a 'shedding abroad the love of God into the heart by the Spirit,' Rom. 5, and it is one afterfruit of faith which many attain to. There is a taste of the pure unmixed sweetness in and of the grace of God, as it comes from out of his own heart, and is immediately conveyed through those breasts of consolation, the absolute promises whereof even new-born babes do oft partake: 1 Pet. 2:3, 'As new-born babes desire the sincere milk,
&c., if so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.' Which surely this our apostle (if ever any) had at this his very infancy of regeneration; and that was it, and the experience thereof was it that drew him here to declare that the grace of our Lord was superabundant; not re ipsa only, as it resides in God's heart unknown to us, nor as demonstrated only by those gracious effects it had wrought in him, but apprehensivè, or in his own apprehensions and sentiments of it; and in that sense it is he especially utters this here. He saw and laid hold of, and took in, that fulness of the grace of God borne towards him, and as it now was, and had been, from everlasting; a grace which was over-full, as his word is, that is, as to his own thoughts and comprehensions. What he prayed for the