Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Power of a New Affection

I don't know if you've ever read The Expulsive Power of a New Affection (pdf) by Thomas Chalmers, but you should.

A taste:
Salvation by grace - salvation by free grace - salvation not of works, but according to the mercy of God - salvation on such a footing is not more indispensable to the deliverance of our persons from the hand of justice, than it is to the deliverance of our hearts from the chill and the weight of ungodliness. Retain a single shred or fragment of legality with the Gospel, and we raise a topic of distrust between man and God. We take away from the power of the Gospel to melt and to conciliate. For this purpose, the freer it is, the better it is.
That very peculiarity which so many dread as the germ of antinomianism, is, in fact, the germ of a new spirit, and a new inclination against it. Along with the light of a free Gospel, does there enter the love of the Gospel, which, in proportion as we impair the freeness, we are sure to chase away. And never does the sinner find within himself so mighty a moral transformation, as when under the belief that he is saved by grace, he feels constrained thereby to offer his heart a devoted thing, and to deny ungodliness. To do any work in the best manner, we should make use of the fittest tools for it.
There are more gems on every page.

1 comment:

Ken Stoll said...

my friend George Grant has written extensively about Chalmers. You might appreciate his blog and find his writings on Chalmers enlightening Jared.

http://grantian.blogspot.com/