[November 30th, 1856.]
I. What is the meaning of the phrase “means of grace?”
- They are not means in the Romish sense, i.e., rites which have the power to confer grace. 2. Nor any service or thing which may be the means of good, such as dispensations of Providence, afflictive or otherwise, nor forms or ceremonies of man’s arranging, though ever so useful. But, 3. Those which are appointed by God for the purpose of conveying grace, and which he has promised to attend by his divine influence. This supposes that God works by means. This he does, 1st. In the material world, which is governed, not by the blind laws of matter, but by the continual operation of God in sustaining and guiding those laws to intelligent ends. 2d. In the intellectual world, in the development and exercise of the minds and character of men; in sustaining, controlling, restraining and guiding their exercises, so that they with perfect freedom work out their own pleasure, and yet the purposes of God. 3d. In the world of grace, where also there is a continual agency of God in combination with the agency of man, in the development of the graces of the Spirit, and in attaining eternal life.
From this it follows (1.) That the means are adapted to the end. The laws of matter are to be employed and followed in attaining physical results; the laws of mind, or rather of human nature, are to be employed in attaining intellectual and moral results. (2.) That in all cases these means are appointed and determined by God. We can not substitute others in their stead. We must use those which God has appointed, or none at all. (3.) These means are absolutely essential, and not more so in one department than in another. (4.) In all cases the means are inefficacious without God’s presence. God gives life and power to natural causes; and he gives efficacy to the means of grace, according to the laws of the kingdom of grace.
II. What are the means of grace? The word, sacraments and prayer. There are no others. Our subject is the Word as a means.
- By the Word we mean the Bible and its contents; the whole system of facts, doctrines, promises and principles therein revealed. 2. This is a means of grace, the means which God has appointed, and which we are commanded to use for the promotion of a work of grace in ourselves and others.
First, as to ourselves. 1st. It must be understood. It must become an object of knowledge. It is only as known that it exerts for us, or exerts over us any power. This knowledge supposes (a.) Familiarity with what the Bible says. (b.) An understanding of the meaning of what it says. If we attach a wrong sense to the language of the Bible, it is not the truth which it contains which is before our minds, but some form of human thought to which no promise is made.
2d. It must be spiritually discerned. That is, it must be apprehended in its spiritual excellence, as it is addressed to the heart as well as, in its logical relations, to the understanding. These may be so far separated that the intellectual may exist without the spiritual; but the spiritual cannot exist without the intellectual. A man may see a thing without seeing its beauty, but he cannot see its beauty without seeing the thing itself.
3d. The word of God must be studied with both these objects, that is, to know what it teaches, and to apprehend its spiritual power. With regard to this point, I would remark, (a.) That the two things are perfectly distinct. The ends aimed at are different, the means employed are different, and the posture of mind is different. (b.) Being thus different, the one can not be substituted for the other, the critical for the devotional, or the devotional for the critical reading. (c.) They may, however, be combined. The mind may pass instantaneously from the one posture to the other, or turn its eye from one aspect to another, of the truth contemplated; as does the astronomer in the study of the heavens, or the man of science in the study of the laws of matter, or the physician in studying the structure of the human frame, or the lawyer in studying the principles of human justice.
4th. As the word is the great means of grace, it must be dilligently used for this end. (a.) It must be brought frequently and for protracted periods before the mind, and contemplated in its spiritual character, as designed and adapted to excite the proper emotions. That is, time must be devoted to the devotional reading and meditation of the truth. (b.) It must be read with constant self-application. As a means of communion with God we must read the word as if God were speaking to us; and we must answer in the words of gratitude, reverence, faith, joy or fear, as the thing said may require. (c.) The mind should be stored with the truth and with the words of Scripture. (d.) We should cultivate the habit of casual meditation, or of recurring to the word of God continually [a.] as matter or subject of thought, [b.] for direction, [c.] for support, and [d.] for consolation.
- As the means, though divinely appointed and divinely efficacious, is powerless in itself, we should always pray for the Spirit, and depend on his promised aid, without which the word will be to us only a savor of death.
Second, as to others.
- The truth is the only, and the absolutely indispensable means. 2. We must endeavor, therefore, to bring men to the knowledge of the truth. 3. We must try to make them employ it in the way of God’s appointment.
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