The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 249

THE WORK OF GRACE A UNIT

209

The divine compassion can not cease from working so long as the work of saving the individual soul is not begun. In all the preparatory work God aims persistently at His elect; not only after the fall, but even before creation, His wisglorious consummation.

dom

rejoiced in His earthly world, and

From

sons of men."

eternity

"

His delights were with the all in whom His gloThey are no strangers to Him,

He foreknows

rious light shall once be kindled.

discovered only after the lapse of ages, upon examination either to be passed by as unprofitable, or to be wrought upon as proper and useful subjects, according to their respective merits; no, our faith-

Covenant God never stands as a stranger before any of His creaHe created them all and ordained how they should be cre-

ful

tures.

ated

;

they are not

created, then ordained

first

;

but ordained, then

Even then the creature is not independent of the Lord, but before there is a word upon his tongue He knoweth it altocreated.

gether; not by information of what already existed, but by divine knowledge of what was to come. Even the relations of cause and effect connecting the various parts of his life lie naked and open before Him; nothing is hid from Him; and much more intimately

man knows himself, God knows him. The waters of salvation descending from the mountain-tops of God's holiness do not flow toward unknown fields, but their channel than

is

prepared, and leaping over the mountain-sides they greet the

acres below which they are to water.

Hence, altho clearness demands divisions and subdivisions in the of grace, yet they do not actually exist the work of grace is a unit, it is one eternal, uninterrupted act, proceeding from the

work

womb

;

of eternity, unceasingly

the glory of the children of

and notable Day of the Lord. of regeneration

God

moving toward the consummation

God which

shall

of

be revealed in the great

For instance, altho

in the

moment

calleth the things that are not, with all that

they contain as in a germ, yet

He had this

it should not be represented as tho neglected that soul for twenty or thirty years. For even

apparent neglect

He would

diately, to seek

so express

is

a divine work.

Constrained by His love

rather have turned to His chosen but lost creature

it;

and save

it.

But

He

refrained Himself,

if

immewe may

for this very neglect, this hiding of His countenance

works together as a means of grace,

in the

hour of love, to make

grace efficient in that soul.

Hence the salvation

of a soul in its personal being is

an eternal.

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