An Expojition of the epiflle SERMON X~ I IV EPHES. :t: 7~ That in the .Ages to come, he might {hew tbe exceeding. 'i(icbes of ~is Grace, i11 bu /t..indnefs towttrds rM i11 Chr!ft JefrM• .THisChapter (as I have t?ld you) fets out th~ Proceedings of God, and the .Contnvements of bts Decrees, to magmfY that rich Grace which is . in himfelf, in the Salvatton of poor Sinners : How when. they were fallen into that dead and da!llnable ~frate, dead in Sins and Trejpajfes, nnd Children of Wrath, that God bemg nch m Mercy, and bearing fo great a I.ove to them, took an advantage of that condition, to magnify his Love fo much the more, not only delive.red them out of it, but with an addition of an infinitely greater advancement. ~d the Apofile !hews by what degrees God doth proceed to bring Salvation to its accomplifhed perfection. He begins with our Souls firfr here, they being dead in Sins, and he quickneth them ; and he bath befides that done this for us now, that in Chrifr he bath raifed up our Souls and Bodies, (the whole Man I mean ) and he bath fet us in heavenly places in him. The firll we received, and have received in our own Perfons, together– with Chrill, here below : The other two, they are indeed received for us by Chriff, and in Chrifr ;they are made fure to us, but yet they are not accom– plifhed and perfeB:ed; and of thefe the Apofrle h~d fpoken in the 4Jh, 5th, and 6th verfe•, Now in the words that I have read to you, he comes to that which was God's end, or indeed which is it felf the end of all, the perfeB:ion, the con· clufion of all, it is contained in this 7th verfe ; that which God had in his eye as the perfel.tion of Salvation, as the utmofr accomplifhment of all that he had done, the Crown, as I may fo fay, of all the former: And that the Apofrle tells us, is, That in the Ages to come, he might jhew forth the exceeding Riches of his Grace, in his kj_ndneft towards IJS in Chrifi Jef!H. · In expounding every Verfe, I have taken this Courfe : Before I have given a particular Explication of every word apart by it felf, with Obfervations, I have firft endeavoured to fetch out the general Scope, and to fix that ; the general Scope in every Text being that which is the meafure of the Interpretation of every particular. And yet nonvithfranding in doing of that I am oftentimes en· forced to expound each word, to !hew bow it agrees to that general Scope. I !hall now be enforced to take this Courfe, there being indeed a very great Difficulty in thefe words, fuch as I could not have imagined to have been in them. Now the words which occafion this Difficulty are thefe, [[,the Ages to come,] For otherwife if thefe words bad not been put in, the Sence would have run currently, and been eafy and plain, that the end that God aimed at inhis permit· ting Man's Fall, that he fho_uld bedead in Sin, a~d then he fhould be thus quick– ned, raifecl, and the ltke, mCbrtll: ; that all thts was done to the Prttife of the GlorJ of his Grace, as in chap. I. v. 7· you have it limply and abfolutely, and there is an end : there would have been no more quellion, but the words would have been fimply and folely fo taken. But tbefewords, [In the Ages to couJC, or, in the Worlds to come,] coming in, they have occafioned two Streams of In· terpretations, whereof if the one fhould be exclufive of the other, and if both * - Jhould
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