Expository Discourses on the First Epistle of Peter

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848 edition. Excerpt: ... taste that the Lord was gracious, was mercy indeed, mercy which should have a constraining power to make them most dutiful subjects of their gracious Lord. ii. the manner in which christians obtain their peculiar privileges; by faith of the truth, and reliance on the saviour. Let us now turn our attention, for a little, to the view the text gives us of the manner in which those miserable beings became possessed of their peculiar privileges, to the immediate cause of so favourable a change in their state and circumstances. It was by u coming to Christ as a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious;" it was by " believing on Him," as "the chief corner-stone, elect, precious, which God had laid in Sion." To believe on Christ as the chief corner-stone, and to come to him as the living stone, have generally been understood as synonymous expressions, and both have been viewed as significant of that faith which, by the constitution of the new covenant, is necessarily connected with the enjoyment of the blessings of the Christian salvation; and the passage, "He that cometh to me shall never hunger, he that believeth on me shall never thirst,"1 has often been quoted as clearly proving this. I apprehend that that passage merely proves, that "he that cometh to Christ," and "he that believeth on him," are two descriptions of the same person, not that they are expressions entirely synonymous in meaning. The following passage seems, indeed