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By grace here we are to understand that holy office or charge in the church, which is given to any man by the grace and favor of God. And in this sense the apostle in this very chapter, ver. 3, useth the word grace: For I say through the grace given to me, i.e. through the authority of my apostleship, which by grace I have received, &c.
There wanteth not a divine medicine and sovereign balm in Gilead, for although the popish opinion of the infallibility of counsels be worthily rejected and exploded, yet it is not in vain that Christ hath promised he shall be present with an assembly which indeed and in truth meeteth in his name with such an assembly verily he useth to be present, by a spiritual aid and assistance of his own Spirit, to uphold the falling, or to raise up the fallen.
There should be a guarding against every thing that may obstruct this work, and grieve him in it; and therefore we would beware, To misimprove any measure of knowledge he giveth. To weary of the means and ordinances whereby he useth to convey knowledge into the soul.
What was the "way of the Lord" respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered? "Wo unto him that useth his neighbor's service WITHOUT WAGES!" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants that which is JUST AND EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their DUES." Rom. xiii. 7. "The laborer is WORTHY OF HIS HIRE." Luke x. 7. How did Abraham teach his servants to "do justice" to others?
Hence ever in transactions of highest moment this hath been used to bind the faith of men. Hereby princes have obliged their subjects to loyalty: and it hath ever been the strongest argument to press that duty, which the Preacher useth, "I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God."
He ever leaves some passages doubtful, as if they were some more intimate secrecies of state, closing his sentence abruptly with hereafter you shall hear more. Which words, I conceive, he only useth as baits, to make the appetite of the reader more eager in his next week's pursuit fora more satisfying labour.
For in other temptations he useth either pleasant allectives unto sin, or other secret sleights and snares; and cometh in the night and stealeth on in the dark unaware; or in some other part of the day flieth and passeth by like an arrow; so shaping himself sometimes in one fashion, sometimes in another, and dissimulating himself and his high mortal malice, that a man is thereby so blinded and beguiled that he cannot sometimes perceive well what he is.
Peter verily, whom the Pope hath oftener in his mouth, and more reverently useth to speak of than he doth of Jesus Christ, did boldly stand against the holy council, saying, "It is better to obey God than men."
The means it useth are always equal to the end: but human language, more especially as there is not an universal language, is incapable of being used as an universal means of unchangeable and uniform information; and therefore it is not the means that God useth in manifesting himself universally to man. It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite.
I know my lord's mind on this matter better than thou, for he hath trusted me fully in the matter. Here are his mandates, and his last words were, Michael Lambourne for his lordship speaks to me as a gentleman of the sword, and useth not the words drunken villain, or such like phrase, of those who know not how to bear new dignities Varney, says he, must pay the utmost respect to my Countess.
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