Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
They who would inculcate a course of prayer, and humiliation, and self-examination, and dealing with the law, in order to believing in Christ, are teaching what is the very essence of Popery; not the less poisonous and perilous, because refined from Romish grossness, and administered under the name of gospel. Horatius Bonar
It seems odd that Bonar would confuse what the Puritans and Edwards taught on how people are to seek God for grace by praying, humiliation of the soul, self-examination, and the use of the Law as means of grace as being the “very essence of Popery.” We could ask Bonar the question that Dr. John Gerstner asked a minister one time, and which others have asked at times as well. Imagine a man who had been attending an orthodox church (could even be a member) for years and knew that the Bible taught irresistible grace and election. He came to the minister and said that he knew he did not believe and was not a Christian. The minister told the man that he needed to believe, but the man said that he knew that but he also knew that God must choose him and that God must draw him. How was he going to believe apart from those things? What would the minister tell the man to do?
The Arminian and the Pelagian have no problems in this area, they just tell the person that they need to believe or that they must repent and believe. But for those who know that the Bible teaches that God must initiate the process, what are they to do before they are converted? Should they just go on in sin and wait until God does what He does? The Reformed person (biblical) understands that God gives faith as a free gift but that He also draws sinners to Himself through the means of grace. The way to having true faith is the real issue. Should men and women wait until God puts faith in them in a single moment or should they seek the Lord to give them a new heart through the means of grace? In light of fact that the Gospel includes irresistible grace, we should look to how that irresistible grace draws men and women from beginning to end.
If a person will only have faith that comes from a believing heart and cannot work that new heart in self, then it is not wrong to tell a person that s/he needs to pray and ask God for a new heart that can and will believe. If God by His grace works humility in the hearts of sinners before He gives them new hearts, then it is not wrong to tell a person and give instructions on how to seek humiliation (self-emptying) before God. If the heart is as deceptive as the Bible teaches and the devil deceives as the Bible teaches, then there will be many who will end up deceived about their salvation on that day. Is it wrong to tell people to examine their hearts since Scripture tells men to examine their hearts? Since the Scripture tells us that we cannot know sin apart from the Law and that the Law is a tutor to men to lead them to Christ, then how can it be wrong to instruct others on using the Law in order to guide them to the end of all hope in self?
These things are not the very essence of Popery, but instead they are the very antithesis of Popery when rightly understood. The teaching of Popery is much closer to what Bonar taught than what the Puritans and Edwards taught. Popery will also say that salvation is by grace, but it also puts the stress on men believing and men doing. That is closer to what Bonar is doing than what the Puritans and Edwards taught in telling men that they were seeking salvation using the means of grace looking to God to save them by grace alone as He wills. The essence of Popery is a form of Arminianism or Pelagianism which puts salvation in the hands of men. What the Puritans and Edwards taught was that salvation is all of grace and grace comes to the soul at the mere pleasure of God.
The Gospel is good news indeed. It is required that men believe, but God works this in men by grace alone. It is God who convicts men of sin in order that they will lose hope in self to believe. It is God who humbles men so that the stout pride in the heart will be broken so that they may have true faith. It is God who alone can use the Law to show men their utter helplessness. That is not Popery, that is biblical and more than that it is a Gospel of grace alone. The sinner is left with nothing to obtain of self but instead can only obtain what is needed by grace. This is the true teaching of grace alone. Bonar misunderstood this.
God Loves... Himself 
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