# God's Promises Rooted in Free Grace



## Pilgrim72 (Feb 6, 2011)

I love this quote, found in William Spurstowe's "The Wells of Salvation Opened". I am sure any Christian who reads this will feel the same way. Because the ground of God's promises is in his free grace through Christ, we can have complete confidence in them.

"This direction, touching the freeness of God's grace in the promises, is exceedingly useful to succor and relieve the perplexing fears of the weak and tempted Christian, who though he has eyes to see the unspeakable worth and excellence of the promises, yet doesn't have the confidence to put forth the hand of faith and to apply them to his necessities. He wants forgiveness of sins, but doubts that the promise of blotting out of iniquities belongs unto him. He is naked, and gladly would that Christ might spread the skirt of his righteousness over him to hide his deformities. But alas! what has a leper to do with a royal robe? He is sick and diseased, but the medicine that must cure him, the least drop of it is more worth than a world, and he is more vile than the dust. How then can he expect that he should ever be the patient of such a Physician, who will be both at the cost to buy the medicine, and at the pains to administer it? If he had a heart to love God as David, if talents to glorify God as Paul, if he were but an Israelite without guile as Nathanael, then he might have hopes together with them to have his person accepted, his services rewarded, and his imperfections pardoned. But his heart, with which he should love God, is carnal, and not spiritual; his talents and abilities, with which he should glorify God, are few or none; his sincerity, which should be the evangelical perfection of all his duties, has more than an ordinary tincture of hypocrisy and self-ends mixed with it. With what confidence therefore can such a one draw near to Christ, or ever expect to be welcomed by him? Now to put to silence these reasonings, and to allay these fears, which unless checked and bounded, do oftentimes terminate in the blackness of despair; there is not a more effectual remedy than the consideration of the freeness of the grace of God and Christ in the promises, which are not made to such as deserve mercy, but to such as want it; not to righteous persons, but to sinners; not to the whole, but to the sick. And therefore such who through the weakness of faith, or the violence of temptations, find it difficult to lay hold on the promises of God touching the pardon of sin, and the obtaining of life and salvation, let them resolve the promises into the first root and principle from whence they spring, which is not from any good in us, but wholly from grace without us; and they will readily find that by eyeing the ground and origin of the promise, they will sooner be encouraged and drawn to believe and to lay hold upon it, than by looking only to the promise itself. Of all the ways and experiments to bear up a sinking spirit, there is no consideration like this, that from the beginning to the end of our salvation nothing is primarily active but free grace. This is a firm bottom of comfort against the guilt of the most bloody and crimson sins, because free grace is not tied to any rules, it may do what it pleases. Somebody that goes to heaven must be the greatest sinner, and what if you are he, whom God will make the everlasting monument of the riches of his love and mercy in Christ? This is an impenetrable shield against the constant accusations of Satan drawn from unworthiness, unprofitableness, backwardness to holy duties, and distractions in them. It is true, a believer may say, I am unworthy, and that which Satan makes the matter of his accusation is the daily matter of my confessions and self-judging before God; the sins which he pleads against me with delight, I bemoan with tears of bitterness. And were the way which leads to heaven a ladder of duties, and not a golden chain of free grace, I could not but fear that the higher I climb, the greater would my fall prove to be; every service being like a brittle rung that can bear no weight; and the whole frame and series of duties at the best, far short of the ladder in Jacob's vision, which had its foot standing upon the earth, and its top reaching to heaven. But the whole way of salvation from first to last, is all of mere grace, that the promise might be sure (Romans 4:16). Every link of the golden chain is made up of free mercy, Election is free (Ephesians 1:5); Vocation is free (2 Timothy 1:9); Justification is free (Romans 5); Sanctification is free (1 Corinthians 6:11); Glorification is free (Romans 6:23). And therefore, though I can challenge nothing of right, yet I may ask everything of mercy; especially being invited by him, who feeds not his people with empty promises, but gives liberally unto every one that asks, and upbraids not, either with former sins, or present failings (James 1:5)."


William Spurstowe, _The Wells of Salvation Opened_, pp. 48-52. (London, 1655)


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