Marbeck:

GRACE

What Grace is.

By grace understand the favor of God, and also the gift of working of the Spirit in us, as love, kindness, patience, obedience, mercifulness, despising of worldly things, peace, concord, and such like.

The true definition of grace.

The true definition of grace, and agreeing to the Holy Scripture is, the free benevolence of God, whereby he counts us dear in Christ Jesus, and forgives us our sins, gives the Holy Ghost, an upright life, and eternal felicity: by this definition is seen, not only what we call grace, but also by whom we have it, and with all the principal effects thereof.

Pet. Mar. upon the Rom. fol. 140.

Received grace of an Apostleship. ¶ Grace is throughout all the Epistles of Paul, taken for the favour and free mercy of God, whereby he saves us freely without any deserts or works of the law. In like manner peace is take for the tranquility of the conscience, being fully persuaded, that through the merits of Christ’s death and blood-shedding, there is an atonement and peace made between God and us, so that God will no more impute our sins unto us, nor yet condemn us.

Sir. I. Cheeke.

Iohn Marbeck, A Book of Notes and Common Places, collected and gathered out of the works of diuers singular Witers, and brought Alphabetically in order (Imprinted at London by Thomas East, 1581), 461. [Some spelling modernized.]

Polhill:

1) This holy principle [persevering faith] is not produced by assistant grace, as if a natural man did by divine assistance work it in himself. The principle or power of believing is either natural or supernatural; if natural, it is by creation; if supernatural, it is by infusion or inspiration; neither way is it produced in a way of assistance. An assistance is not accommodated to a thing to produce a new power, but to bring forth an act from thence. The light is assistant to the eye in the act of vision, but it gives not the visive power, to it: assisting grace concurs to the act of believing, but it confers not a believing principle. The greatest saint in the world stands in need of assisting grace, that his gracious principles may come into actual exercise; he must have help from the holy one, a supply of the Spirit of Christ; the heavenly roots do not cast forth themselves unless God be as dew to them; the sweet spices do not flow out actually, unless God breathe upon them by auxiliary grace; still he wants assistance to the doing of good as he ought; the greatest saint though a man full of divine principles, stands in need of assistance. And does a natural man, one void of good, fraught with evil, need no more: is regenerating, quickening, renewing, new-creating grace, nothing but an assistance only? May one believe that the Holy Spirit in Scripture should give such high, stately titles to an assistance only? May a man be a co-operator, or co-partner with God in the raising up faith and a new creature in himself? It is true, a natural man may by a common grace enter upon preparatories; he may attend upon on the means, but what can he contribute to the work itself? he is merely natural, the new creature is totally supernatural, and what can he do towards it? could he contribute ought, what would the new creature be? must it not be part natural as from man, part supernatural as from God; part old as from nature part new as from grace? Thus it must be if this great work be divided between God and man.     Edward Polhill, ‘A View of Some Divine Truths,” in The Works of Edward Polhill (Morgan, PA.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998), 70-71. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; square bracket inserts and underlining mine.]

2) Thus the Holy Spirit shows forth its glory, and flows in men as rivers of living water: and this glory and out-flowing is so precious, that before it came, in esse, according to the rich measures of gospel-grace, it is said of the eternal Spirit, epo en Pneuma agion, “the Holy Spirit was npt yet,” John vii. 30); as if the Spirit’s flowing in men were a kind of second being to it. But now after all this, if conversion be not wrought in an insuperable way, the Holy Spirit may be barred out of every heart, and then how shall his work be done? Where shall his glory and spiritual miracles appear? The Father hath a world to appear in, the Son has flesh to tabernacle in, but possibly the Holy Spirit can get never a heart to inhabit in, never a temple to fill with his glory; the Holy Spirit would tabernacle with men, but what if the iron sinew in the will will not come out? What if the stone in the heart will not break? Then the Holy Spirit is robbed of his glory. But is this so strange a thing? will you say. What saith holy Stephen? “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye,” (Acts vii. 51). To which I answer; That the Spirit may be said to be resisted two ways; either as it is in the external or as it comes in the internal operations. It may be resisted in the external ministry: “He that despises you despises me,” says Christ, (Luke x. 16). ” He that despises, despises not man but God,” saith the apostle, (1 Thess. iv. 8). When, therefore, it is said, that they resisted the Holy Ghost, the meaning is not, that they resisted him as to his internal operations, but that they resisted hin as to the external ministry. This appears by the context, for they resisted him as their fathers did, (v. 51), and how was that? The next verse tells us ; which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted, (v. .52)? Their resistance of the Spirit was in persecution of the prophets. But you will say, might they not also resist him as to his internal operations? I answer: so much doth not appear in the text; but however, the internal operations of the Spirit are twofold; some are for the production of common graces, some for the production of saving graces, such as the new heart and new spirit. Now, if the Holy Ghost may be resisted as to the former operations, yet it cannot as to the latter; for in these it takes away the heart of stone, the resisting principle, and gives a heart of flesh capable of divine impressions.    Edward Polhill, ‘A View of Some Divine Truths,” in The Works of Edward Polhill (Morgan, PA.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998), 202 . [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; italics original; and underlining mine.]

Humfrey:

Having gone thus far in abasing the strength of nature, we shall find how they [Arminians] make it up again, with advancing an universal Sufficient grace, by the help of which lever of free will of man shall be lifted into the same throne, from whence before they threw it down. For when that grace which they set up, must be such as only gives a next power to believe and repent if we will, but leaves the will undetermined and uninclined, and this being supposed to be vouchsafed to all according to the condition they are in, whether Elect or Reprobate alike, it is apparent that man’s free will by the cooperation of this grace, or refusal, is that which begins, or puts by his own justification, and consequently makes the difference (in the upshot) between him that is saved, and him that is damned…

Now what my thoughts are on this, I have offered as I pass; and more particularly, at the end, upon he first head of Election. There is  universal Grace consistent with Special Grace of God’s Elect: or inconsistent with it.  The former, I shall like to have well explained. The latter, I take to be against St. Augustine, and the Scriptures. The Grace of God is without, or within us. There us the Love, or Good-will of God to Mankind, “who would have all to be saved”: Our Redemption by Christ; The remedying Covenant; The Gospel. This is Grace without, and that some Grace there us then sufficient, and universal, that yet has no Effect on the most, is out of doubt. There is moreover, that Grace which lies in the Help, or Assistance of the Spirit within, and the Fruit of it (Gratia Auxiliatrix, & Infusa) and this our Divines do distinguish unto Common and Saving. By Common, they understand not the universal sufficient assistance of the Schools before, but some particular Operation of the Spirit effecting so much as it is given for, only because those Effects reach no farther than what is Common to the Elect and Reprobate, they call such Help or Grace only Common Grace. Thus far we are safe; As for any Grace besides all this, if there be any, not opposing Electing Grace, I shall be glad to hear it; but my own mind, I perceive, hangs thus.

John Humfrey, The Middle-Way in One Paper of Election & Redemption, With Indifferency between Arminian & Calvinist, (Printed for T. Parkhurst, at the Three Bibles in Cheap-side, 1673), 36 and 37. [Some reformatting; bracketed insert mine; some spelling modernized, extended Latin quotation not included; underlining mine.]

Davies:

1) Further, Let us improve our account of spiritual life, to inform us of a very considerable difference between a mere moral and spiritual life; or evangelical holiness and morality. Spiritual life is of a divine original; evangelical holiness flows from a supernatural principle; but mere morality is natural; it is but the refinement of our natural principles, under the aids of common grace, in the use of proper means; and consequently it is obtainable by unregenerate men. Hence the same act may be differently denominated, according to the principles from which it proceeds; that may be a piece of mere morality in one, who acts from natural principles only, which is an act of holiness in another, who acts from a principle of spiritual life. So an alms, when given from a gracious principle, and for Christ’s sake, is a gracious act; but when given from a principle of natural generosity only, it deserves no higher name than that of mere morality. A mistake in this is a rock we may tremble to look at, and ought anxiously to avoid! for alas! how many have been dashed to pieces upon it! Samuel Davies, “The Divine Life in the Souls of Men Considered” in Sermons on Important Subjects (New York: Robert Carter, 1845), 2:397. [underlining mine.]

2) Here, by the by, I would make a remark to vindicate this dreadful instance of the execution of divine justice, Which is more liable to the cavils of human pride and ignorance than perhaps any other. The remark is, that God may justly inflict privative as well as positive punishment upon obstinate sinners; or, in plainer terms, he may with undoubted justice punish them by taking away the blessings they have abused, or rendering those blessings useless to them, as well as by inflicting positive misery upon them. This is a confessed rule of justice; and it holds good as to spirituals as well as temporals. May not God as justly take away his common grace, and deny future assistance, to an obstinate sinner, who has abused it, as deprive him of health or life? Why may he not as justly leave him destitute of the sanctified use of the means of grace he has neglected and unimproved, in this world, as of the happiness of heaven, in the World to come? This is certainly a righteous punishment: and there is also a propriety and congruity in it: it is proper and congruous that the lovers of darkness should not have the light obtruded upon them; that the despisers of instruction, should receive no benefit from it; that those who improve not what they have, should have no more, but should lose even what they have. Thus their own choice is made their curse, and their sin their punishment Samuel Davies, “The Guilt and Doom of Impenitent Hearers,” in Sermons on Important Subjects (New York: Robert Carter, 1845), 3:464. [underlining mine.]