Free grace will fix those whom free will shook down into a gulf of misery.
Interpretation
Free grace can save those who have fallen into despair due to their own choices.
This quote by Thomas Boston emphasizes the transformative power of grace in the human experience. It suggests that while free will can lead individuals to make poor decisions, causing them to descend into despair, it is through the unmerited favor of grace that they can find redemption and hope. The interplay between free will and grace illustrates a profound philosophical question about human agency and divine intervention.
In practice
During a sermon about redemption, this quote can highlight the importance of grace in overcoming personal failures.
Sinners in their natural state lie dead, lifeless, and moveless; they can no more believe in Christ, nor repent, than a dead man can speak or walk: but, in virtue of the promise, the Spirit of life from Christ Jesus, at the time appointed, enters into the dead soul, and quickens it; so that it is no more morally dead, but alive, having new spiritual powers put into it, that were lost by Adam's fall.
Call it no more free-will, but slavish lust; free to evil, but free from good, till regenerating grace loosens the bands of wickedness.
Whoever be the instruments of any good to us, of whatever sort, we must look above them, and eye the hand and counsel of God in it, which is the first spring, and be duly thankful to God for it. And whatever evil of crosses or afflictions befalls us, we must look above the instruments of it to God.
No work nor deed of ours whatsoever, no not faith itself, can be the condition of the covenant of grace properly so called; but only Christ's fulfilling all righteousness.
The law discovers the disease, and the gospel the physician.
Has God decreed all things that come to pass? Then there is nothing that falls out by chance, nor are we to ascribe what we meet with either to good or ill luck and fortune. There are many events in the world which men look upon as mere accidents, yet all these come by the counsel and appointment of Heaven.
Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives.
Some people write heavily, some write lightly. I prefer the light approach because I believe there is a great deal of false reverence about. There is too much solemnity and intensity in dealing with sacred matters; too much speaking in holy tones.
You never know yourself till you know more than your body.
All of us are citizens in a republic much larger than the Republic of America. It is the Republic of Letters, a realm of the mind that extends everywhere, without police, national boundaries, or disciplinary frontiers.
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
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