3. To exhort us, to pray unto this great God to give us grace and peace.
Doct. 7. Jesus Christ is the beginning of all grace and peace.
God is the first and principall author, and so also Christ, as he is God: but as he is God and man, our Mediatour, so he is the beginning ordained by God, as the head, from whom all grace is to be derived unto his members, as into the vessels of grace; so that God is as it were the first and principall fountaine, Christ as the secondary fountaine, in whom is hid all grace that is to be given unto the faithfull, and the faithfull themselves are the vessels that draw and receive this grace, which runnes into them from these fountaines, and the word and Sacraments are as the channels.
Vse. This may serve to informe us of the manner, how we should seeke for grace, viz. that we should alwayes go unto God in Christ, because extra Christum, out of Christ, he is unto sinners not a God of grace and peace, but of vengeance, and a consuming fire. Doct. 8. True faith is the instrumeneall cause of grace and peace, and of the multiplying of both, whereby it is derived unto us.
Reason. Because by knowledge in this place is meant faith. For it is not meant a bare knowledge, but something more, which followes this knowledge, therefore it is not called [Greek: gnôsis], but [Greek: epignôsis], that is, an acknowledging. 2. Thereby is meant an effectuall knowledge, such as there is no other taught us in the Scriptures, but faith. Now faith is signified by the name of knowledge, because by the hearing and knowledge of the word it is usually begotten in us. And faith is called the instrument of grace, not as it is in God himselfe, willing, intending, and ordaining spirituall good things unto us, for so grace is the cause of faith; but as the sense, fruit and knowledge of this grace is communicated unto us. For faith is so the fruit and effect of grace, that it hath the first place, and is the instrumentall cause of all following grace. And this efficacy it hath in respect of the object, which it layes hold of, Iesus Christ, because as we said before, he is the beginning of all grace, so that as Adam was the beginning of nature and the corruption thereof, and that relation which we have unto
