The Helpfulness of Grace

By ROBERT TRAILL, London, 1696.

1. The grace of God helps always to purpose, and effectually. This grace helped Paul to labour more abundantly than all the apostles, I Cor. xv. 10. I say not, that this is always sensible to the receiver; but only that grace given is always really effectual for the end for which it is given. It is not given in vain.

2. The grace of God helps universally. There is no case wherein it is not helpful. As without Christ we can do nothing, John xv. 5; so, through him strengthening, we may do all things, or any thing, Phil. iv. 13. A Christian can imagine, can foresee no condition, no trial, no difficulty,

wherein the Lord’s grace cannot help him. So the text runs, that we may find grace to help in time of need. Let the time be what it will, and the need what it will, grace can help in it. It were a sad weakness of faith for any Christian to say, I am in that condition, that the grace of God cannot help me in. His grace is omnipotent.

1. Grace helps sweetly. I mean, that it doth not help as an external help, but as an internal. As for a familiar similitude: A weak and weary, or lame person, may be helped by the strength of another, or by being carried; but this is but external help. This weak or lame person is helped far better, when his infirmity is removed, and new strength given to him, so that he can pleasantly walk and run: Psalm cxxxviii. 3. In the day when I cried, thou answeredst me; and strengthenest me with strength in my soul. It is true, the grace of God, wherein our strength consists, is without us, and in him; but it is inwardly applied to us, when strength is found and felt. Therefore is it that believers not only find, by the dispensings of his helping grace, an effectual strength for their work and duty; but a great deal of sweetness and easiness in the exerting of that gracious help. So Psalm cxix. 32, I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart. When he draws, we run, Song i. 4. When such helping influences of grace come on believers, holy obedience becomes in a manner as sweet, easy, and natural to them, as it is to a man that hath bodily strength, to use it in speaking, walking, or working: Isa. xl. 31. They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew (or change) their strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. Psalm ciii. 5. Thy youth is renewed like the eagles, is one of the notes in the Psalmist’s sweet song. No saint is ignorant of this in his own experience. Who knows not, that at some times their work is heavy, and is a burden too heavy for them; at other times it is as light as a feather; and as pleasant and easy to them, as for a bird that hath wings to fly?

2. Lastly, The grace of God helps very mysteriously. Sometimes its help is very secret; and at other times it is very plain to be discovered. Its help is sometimes so secret, that the saints cannot know or discern it at present, but they are made to know it afterwards: Psalm lxxiii. 2. But as for me, my feet were almost gone: my steps had well-nigh slipped. Ver. 22. So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. This is the account he gives of the power of the temptation he was under, and of the bad frame it had brought upon him. Ver. 23. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. He did not know this, till he was brought out of the darkness of the temptation: but then he did discern, that there had been a secret support given him, otherwise he had fallen utterly.

Secondly, What encouragement have we to come to the throne of grace for this helping grace?

1. The proposal and revelation made to us of this grace as helpful, is an encouragement to come for it. Hath the Lord revealed his grace, as only helpful to his people; and should they not come for that help? Your faith is not very strong and active, unless you can catch at the grace of God, without a plain particular promise. I say not, but there are

promises many and great of this helping grace, and that faith must build upon them, and doth: but I only mean, that the bare revelation of the treasures of grace that are with the Lord, should, when an interest in the promises is dark, encourage a poor soul to come for a share of this grace of God: Psalm exxx. 4. But there is forgiveness with thee. He saith not, There is forgiveness for me; but, There is forgiveness with thee. So verse 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. Wherefore is this forgiveness, this mercy, this redemption, with the Lord; and why is it revealed; but that the guilty should come for this forgiveness, the miserable for this mercy, the many-ways captives for this plenteous redemption? The Lord’s fulness of grace is an argument for our faith, as well as his goodness and faithfulness in making and performing promises of grace.

1. But we have promises also for our encouragement. Promises imply God’s fulness of grace; but do express his good will to dispense it, and do bind and engage his truth to fulfil them, to all that take God at his word, and trust him on his word. It is a pity, that ever the exceeding great and precious promises, and precious faith, II Peter i. 1, 4, should be parted. Mark x. 49. And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called: and they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee. They had no promise; but they understood Christ’s calling of the blind man, was an act of mercy, and on a design of shewing more mercy. But we have many promises of grace.

2. We have all the experience of the communication of his grace, according to his promises, for our encouragement in coming for grace. Every supplicant for grace should encourage his heart, by all the Lord’s dispensings of his grace. How many of these are revealed in the word! and many like them daily are to be seen in the church of Christ. If you have such experiences of your own, build upon them, praise for them, and beg more. If you have none of your own, behold the showers of grace, that have fallen upon many as bad as yourselves, and which have changed them into that same blessed state that you desire to be in.

APPLICATION. 1. Is the grace of God thus helpful? and should we come to the throne of grace for the help of grace? Then we see, that weak Christians should pray most. Such as can do least for themselves, have most need of grace to help them, and should seek it most. Is any man under a clear conviction, by the light of the word, and his own sensible experience, that he is extremely weak, and utterly unable for any good word or work? This man, of all men, should pray most. Manage your sense of weakness, as a call to ask much of this helping grace of God.

1. Surely, then, coming to the throne of grace for grace to help, must be hopeful work. If at any time Satan, or an ungodly world, should tempt you, or your own heart fail you, in fears of the unprofitableness of seeking God, have this as a ready answer: “I am fit for nothing, his grace can help me in everything. Whither should I go but to the throne of grace? What can I beg there but his grace?” Say with David, Psalm lvii. 2, 3. I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me. He shall send from heaven, and save me. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth. And will not these save any man?

(To be continued.)

The late Rev. Thomas Houghton.

Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

By REV. J. P. MACQUEEN.

SOME months ago, in a comment in our Magazine, we warned our readers, many of whom are also regular readers of the Gospel Magazine, relative to the favourable reviews of books on Pre-millennialism appearing then in the pages of that otherwise excellent and edifying evangelical undenominational magazine. In case some may have concluded from our comment that we had fallen out of hearty sympathy with the witness of that excellent evangelical periodical, we wish to state emphatically that it is far otherwise, and that our only objection to the Gospel Magazine was against these favourable reviews of books bearing on the subject of Pre-millennialism. It was during our itinerary in Canada and the United States that we were especially shocked by the extravagantly unbecoming views held, and the methods of propagation employed, by those holding Pre-millennial views of the Second Advent, and we then resolved to oppose and expose this blatant caricature of Scriptural and divine truths. In one city in Canada, for instance, during the present writer’s sojourn there, a lady teacher who stayed in the same house with us, went to the local Dispensational Pre-millennial Church on a Sabbath night, to see things for herself at first hand. On her return she said she was horrified to see in the Church a dramatic representation of the Second Advent stage-acted. Those on the lower platform represented those who were to be left behind in the so-called “tribulation,” whose foreheads were marked by a man with an ink-horn in his hand, with “the mark of the beast,” and the bodily tortures, contortions, and agonies they were supposed to undergo were gruesome and lurid in the extreme. On the upper platform were men and women, all dressed in white, with palms in their hands, representing the Church being triumphantly raptured, and Christ coming in the clouds to meet them. The religious extravagances of the pre-millennial Fifth Monarchy Men in England were tame in comparison with the foregoing impious, dramatic representations and caricature of the most solemnly awe-inspiring events yet to be. Knowing these facts, we were duty-bound to warn our readers, but, notwithstanding, we would otherwise like to pay deserved tribute to one of the finest Christian gentlemen it has been our privilege to meet on life’s journey, while regretting very much his Pre-millennial views.

Rev. Thomas Houghton, editor of the Gospel Magazine, and a faithful and godly minister of the evangelical section of the Church of England, passed to his everlasting rest and reward in 1950, aged 92 years, after having served his generation, by voice and pen, according to the will of God. It is interesting to record that when he was offered the editorship of the evangelical Gospel Magazine, he at first refused, owing to the arduous nature of the work of his wide parish. Shortly after his refusal he lost his voice, and, thinking himself useless for the work of the ministry, he then accepted the editorship of the Gospel Magazine, and, wonderful to relate, immediately his voice was restored to normal. Previously, the Gospel Magazine had as editors men as distinguished for their intellectual gifts as they were eminent for piety, especially its first editor, the renowned Augustus M. Toplady, the author of the famous

hymn, “Rock of ages, cleft for me.” For uncompromising fidelity to evangelical principle, Rev. Thomas Houghton was not a whit behind the best of these.

He was a regular reader and sincere admirer of the Free Presbyterian Magazine from its inception till the day of his death. He corresponded cordially with the late Rev. J. S. Sinclair, our Magazine’s first and worthy editor. He also corresponded with Rev. D. Beaton, whom he met in London at one of the annual conferences of the Sovereign Grace Union. He quoted frequently, in the Gospel Magazine, from the Free Presbyterian Magazine, and often reproduced from it entire articles. He was the author of many books, booklets and pamphlets, bearing on evangelical subjects generally, and also books and booklets on present-day heresies and errors. These books and booklets were in popular demand, and obtained a wide circulation among true evangelical believers.

He was noted for his strict and Scriptural observance of the Lord’s Day. He condemned, with uncompromising fidelity, the running of vehicles for commercial gain on the Lord’s Day, and while he unsparingly condemned listening-in on the wireless on Sabbath, he declined to have a wireless set in his house even on week-days, because the abuse far exceeded the use in this connection. It was altogether remarkable that so faithful a minister of the Gospel could be found in the heterodox Church of England, with its widespread Modernist and Anglo-Catholic corruption. He was a gentle but firm witness for “the truth as it is in Jesus” in his day and generation, and as fine a Christian gentleman as the present writer ever knew. “The righteous man’s memorial shall everlasting prove” (Ps. exii. 6, metrical version).