What is Christianity Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

It was sovereign grace

Back to Next Part Man's religion & God's religion 2


The sovereignty of God is a great mystery—a mystery so profound as to be absolutely unfathomable by the human intellect.

Unable, therefore, or unwilling to believe what they cannot comprehend—men have denied the sovereignty of God, and sought, with feeble hands, to wrest the sceptre of omnipotence out of the grasp of the mighty Lord of heaven and earth—the great and glorious Arbiter of all events, and Disposer of all circumstances.

But the child of grace, who is under divine teaching, whatever may have been his strong prejudices against, or his violent opposition to scripture truth in the days of his ignorance—is brought sooner or later to see and acknowledge the sovereignty of God. And when he is led into the mystery, he receives it as a most blessed truth.

As his eye is opened to see the sovereign hand of God in fixing and determining the circumstances of his earthly being—he sees how all was arranged by infinite wisdom and executed by infinite power. And when he comes to the department of grace, and can with believing eye trace out the dealings of God with his soul, then, in a more conspicuous manner still, does the sovereignty of God beam upon his heart.

For well he knows that 'free will' had no place there—and that it was not of him who wills, or of him who runs—but of God who shows mercy. How plainly he sees and feels that it was sovereign grace—which first arrested him on his downward course—which made him feel the burden of sin—which put a cry and a sigh into his soul—which brought him to the footstool of mercy—which revealed the Saviour—and applied the message of mercy and peace to his heart.

Thus what some deny and others dispute—he is brought to receive in the simplicity of faith, as most glorifying to God and suitable to man—and as he receives it, he admires it, adores it, and submitsto it!