APHORISM V.

Leighton.

Two links of the chain (namely, election and salvation) are up in heaven in God's own hand; but this middle one (that is, effectual calling) is let down to earth, into the hearts of his children, and they laying hold on it have sure hold on the other two: for no power can sever them. If, therefore, they can read the characters of God's image in their own souls, those are the counterpart of the golden characters of his love, in which their names are written in the book of life. Their believing writes their names under the promises of the revealed book of life (the Scriptures) and thus ascertains them, that the same names are in the secret book of life which God hath by himself from eternity. So that finding the stream of grace in their hearts, though they see not the fountain whence it flows, nor the ocean into which it returns, yet they know that it hath its source in their eternal election, and shall empty itself into the ocean of their eternal salvation.

If election, effectual calling, and salvation, be inseparably linked together, then, by any one of them a man may lay hold upon all the rest, and may know that his 41 hold is sure; and this is the way wherein we may attain, and ought to seek, the comfortable assurance of the love of God. Therefore make your calling sure, and by that your election; for that being done, this follows of itself. We are not to pry immediately into the decree, but to read it in the performance. Though the mariner sees not the pole-star, yet the needle of the compass which points to it, tells him which way he sails: thus the heart that is touched with the loadstone of divine love, trembling with godly fear, and yet still looking towards God by fixed believing, interprets the fear by the love in the fear, and tells the soul that its course is heavenward, towards the haven of eternal rest. He that loves, may be sure he was loved first; and he that chooses God for his delight and portion, may conclude confidently, that God hath chosen him to be one of those that shall enjoy him, and be happy in him for ever; for that our love and electing of him is but the return and repercussion of the beams of his love shining upon us.

Although from present unsanctification, a man cannot infer that he is not elected; for the decree may, for part of a man's life, run (as it were) underground; yet this is sure, that that estate leads to death, and unless it be broken, will prove the black line of reprobation. A man hath no portion amongst the children of God, nor can read one word of comfort in all the promises that belong to them, while he remains unholy.

REMARK.

In addition to the preceding, I select the following paragraphs as having nowhere seen the terms, spirit, the gifts of the spirit, and the like, so effectually vindicated from the sneers of the sciolist on the one hand, and protected from the perversions of the fanatic on the 42 other. In these paragraphs the Archbishop at once shatters and precipitates the only draw-bridge between the fanatical and the orthodox doctrine of grace, and the gifts of the spirit. In Scripture the term, spirit, as a power or properly seated in the human soul, never stands singly, but is always specified by a genitive case following; this being a Hebraism instead of the adjective which the writer would have used if he had thought, as well as written, in Greek. It is the spirit of meekness (a meek spirit) or the spirit of chastity, and the like. The moral result, the specific form and character in which the Spirit manifests its presence, is the only sure pledge and token of its presence; which is to be, and which safely may be, inferred from its practical effects, but of which an immediate knowledge or consciousness is impossible; and every pretence to such knowledge is either hypocrisy or fanatical delusion.