with them That 's the second Sense It manifests and demonstrates it self before Men to be Faith It is that that justifies before a Man 's own Conscience concerning the truth of Faith and before Men concerning that real Operation of God upon faith in the Soul Now to this the Apostle seems to speak very plainly in the 18. verse Yea a man may say Thou hast faith and I have works shew me thy faith without thy works and I will shew thee my faith by my works You know this plainly speaks that faith justifies it self before Men to be true faith when it shews it self in Operations suitable to the Nature and to the Excellency of faith But if a Man have no works if a Man says I believe in Christ and be a Swearer a Drunkard an impure Person every way unrighteous and unsuitable to the Commands of God how can such a Man shew his faith There must be an agreeableness and suitabless of Conversation and Action And seest thou how faith wrought It was visible to Men. And then The third and last Sense is That faith is daily perfecting it self in holy Action till it comes to that Perfection as I have spoken before and several times upon the 3 d. of Philippians till it comes to the Perfection of the Resurrection of the dead And so it fufills the Scripture as the Apostle speaks That is That whereas it was said before of Abraham He believed God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness long before he offer'd Isaac There was not a staying of his Justification till he had offered Isaac but he was justified before he offered Isaac But yet faith perfects it self and fulfils the Scripture daily going on from Grace to Grace from Strength to Strength from Degree to Degree till it appears before God perfect And so the Apostle saith By works was faith made perfect And this is suitable to the 2 Thes 1. 11. that I named several times That God would fulfil all the pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power That the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in him Here you see it is very plain That the fulfilling of the good Pleasure of the Grace of God it demonstrates the Truth of Faith and glorifies the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ in Believers and Believers in him according to the Grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ Methinks this very Expression it should silence all the Enemies of the Free Grace of God and of Justification by Free Grace For here is as highly spoken of the working of Faith as all the Understanding of Man can possibly reach to either to conceive or to express What can be greater than the Glorifying the Name of the Lord Jesus in Believers and Believers being Glorified in him And yet all this thrown off quite from any thing of Man or Redundancy by way of Glory upon Man It is said According to the Grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ I shall now close these Things that I have spoken thus narrowly to you I hope God will enlarge them in your Hearts in these three brief Applications and so conclude The first is this That you would consider the infinite Wisdom of Scripture Indeed there is nothing so admirable as these two Things in Scripture to cut off all occasion to turn the Grace of God into Lasciviousness and yet to set out the Grace of God at its full Height and Excellency O do but take these Two Things along which can never divide nor deceive 1. All is Grace And yet 2. Grace is mighty in its Operation And indeed though we have reason to lie low because Grace as in us seems so short and narrow in its Operation Yet these are two Things that can never be disjoined They are one within another It is the Grace of God that brings forth the Holiness and keeps it in Union to Christ even throughout the whole Course of a Christians Life and even indeed throughout Eternity it self Grace keeps us in the way of Holiness and new Obedience O therefore let us not turn the Grace of God into Wantonness And yet let us be continually admiring and adoring free Grace Let us be great Professors of free Grace but Professors of it in the Holiness and Purity of it And then In the second place it teaches us still never to forsake that Fundamental Point of all our Interest of all our Hope of all the Holiness that ever we had or can have If we have any at all we have it from Jesus Christ He is the Alpha and the Omega He is the Author and Finisher He is the Beginning and End He is the First and Last All in All. And therefore whenever we desire to be Holy O go to Christ the Redeemer and Finisher of Holiness Whenever we complain of Corruption go to him that is able to Redeem from all Iniquity Whenever we are like to be drawn to vain Tradition go out to the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ who alone can set us free from the Power of it Lastly I beseech you expect that there will indeed be a greater State of Holiness when that Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ shall come into Succession And don't think it a long time because you see no more Holiness yet I would only desire you to consider one place of Scripture and with that I will conclude On what a sudden God will do this great Thing The 2 Cor. 10 4 5 7. For the Weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to pulling down of strong holds casting down Imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into Captivity every thought to the Obedience of Christ And having in a readiness to revenge all Disobedience when your Obedience is fulfilled Herein the Gospel in the Apostles Days for a little time gave a Spetimen and appearance of it self Just like some of the great Conquerors that we read of in the World either Alexander or Julius Caesar or Soliman among the Turks They pass'd through the World as it were and all lay at their feet They brought every thing down As the Scripture speaks they heap'd dust and took every City and derided every strong Hold Hab. 1. 10. As now the way of Bombing you know Men go suddenly through their Undertaking In the same manner and much more shall the Gospel when once it comes to play its Artillery as I may so speak through the World it will open its Magazeen and carry every thing in the World before it though they are never so strong and bring every thought and all into Captivity And it hath in a readiness to revenge all Disobedience If there be any thing that yields not it hath a mighty power to Revenge to bring every thing under And it only stays for this Till the Obedience of Saints be fulfilled Some may say If we were but more Righteous God will make us more Righteous when this time of the Grace of his Gospel shall begin he will then fulfil in our Obedience FINIS
Christ But I say it cannot be throughout so For then men should be saved by Christ and never know that they are saved by Christ Then Christ would be no more the Saviour of his people than he is the Saviour of stones or insensible Rocks We must therefore come to have a feeling and knowing that Jesus Christ is ours Or else we could not receive his salvation How should we be the better within if we did not know Christ An understanding and Intellectual Being must have such a knowledge of Faith to know Christ And therefore as the Apostle speaks Phil. 3. I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. I must know him Not that this Contributes any thing to our happiness but onely the feeling and enjoying that happiness That happiness is onely from God But as you know a blind man is never the better in point of Light and sight though the Sun be never so Glorious Every one that seeth the Son and believeth in him We must see him or else we could not know he is ours we could have no Enjoyment of him our Souls would be still like unsensible Rocks and Marbles if there were not this sense by Faith and the knowledge of Christ by believing And therefore it is a very great truth that Faith is a manifestation to us and within us that Christ is ours When our Souls receive the touches of his Love and grace upon us and we come to know and find the sweetness to taste that the Lord is Gracious and to know what a Pearl we have in some measure and that we find Christ is ours and hath given himself for us In the third place there could not else be a manifestatory Glory It is true Christ is glorious as a Saviour But we could not Glorify him if we did not know by Faith that he is such a Saviour This is that that the soul makes its Boast in God by this draws it to Glory in Christ and to give all the Glory it can do to him Because it finds it is saved by him and him alone Now it is very Evident God had no need of Glory from Angels nor from men to manifest his Glory by them But it pleased the wisdom and Grace of God to declare his infinite Being before such Beings as Angels and men fitted with understandings to behold it Why so Christ had no need of our Glorifying of him But yet it is very Evident that he is pleased to be Glorifyed by us and that we Glorify him by acknowledging all our salvation from him And herein is Faith of great use It gives Glory as the Apostle speaks Abraham was strong in Faith giving Glory to God Rom. 4. So Faith gives Glory to the Righteousness and Freeness of the Grace of God in Jesus Christ And then In the Fourth place it is also necessary upon this Account for I am far in all this discourse from that which is truly called Antinomianism or Libertinism I say as Faith looks outward and from Christ into holy Action the knowledge that Faith gives is serviceable in the hand of Christ to all holiness and purification of Life To live to him to live and to walk by Faith to be every way self-Resigning according to that whole 11th Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews And thus I have endeavoured with all briefness to set out the Excellent nature of Faith I shall but make one short Application of it And that is to stir up all our hearts in looking up to God according to that great prayer Ephes 3. 14 15 16. verses For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in Heaven and Earth is named that he would grant you according to the riches of his Glory to be strengthned with might by his spirit in the inner man To what End That Christ may dwell in your hearts by Faith O look up to this You see how Faith is indeed always called up by Christ when he gives himself to any Soul when he comes to dwell in any Soul Faith must receive him it must embrace him it must depend wholly upon him Now therefore O! That our hearts may be strengthened by his Spirit in the Inner man Alas Our Inner man you may see plainly by all that I have said is very weak and unfaithful And it is confirmed by this expression of the Apostle how the Inner man would never draw in Christ it would never hold him if it came to him Our Inner man is such a false thing to the Great things of our Eternal salvation it is such a feeble weak thing it would never be able to hold Christ But the Spirit strengthens the Inner man That Christ may dwell in our hearts by Faith Else I say it could never if you would give me leave to use such a plain word as that fetch in Christ And if he came it would never hold him Our Inner man must be strengthened by the Spirit of Christ that Christ may dwell in us And then we go forward to be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ and to Comprehend that love of Christ which passeth knowledge that we may be filled with all the fulness of God I hope there is nothing that I have spoken that can Justly offend any man's mind for it is fully to the sense of Scripture and of Scripture Reason and it excludes all manner of looseness and Libertinism of life For Christ is certainly sanctification to every one to whom he is Justification he gives the power of Holiness And Faith is made serviceable As I told you the immanent acts are those whereby it stays within and has Communion with Christ wherein it has nothing but to depend and trust in him But then It works outward as they say of the works of God Ad Extra The Excellent acts of the Father Son and Spirit they go out of themselves So Faith goes out to all the works of obedience And therefore if you would know what Faith is when it works outward I would propose to you to Read that Chapter Heb. 11. How greatly Faith works outward But Christ still is the Author and finisher And when it comes to Christ it has nothing to do but to trust and depend and receive And O! therefore let us all bow our knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he would grant us according to the Riches of his Glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the Inner man We can never have such a thing as Faith if the Riches of Glory does not come in with it and if the spirit of Christ does not come in with it And indeed where the spirit of Christ comes he comes And so Christ and the spirit Elicits as they call it and draws and Brings the Soul to clasp about him to lay hold upon him He brings the Soul thus near to
Blood O! consider how your Souls are Acted to him And so go from thence to All Truth for there 's no separation as I have shewn you The same Omnipotency of God that is in the Father and the Son and the Spirit is that strength that went out and Created this World Acts ad extra or without the Father Son and Spirit Why so the Faith which in its immanent Acts stays upon Christ and his Blood it also passes and goes out upon all the Truths of Holiness and Obedience But then The second thing with which I would conclude is this That you mind these mighty Powers that Act Faith O! mind all the greatness of the Blood and of the Water and the Witness of the Father and the Word and the Spirit It is a great Scripture that I led you to the last day and with which I 'll close 〈◊〉 Discourse which shews you that the mighty Power of Faith is from God and from Christ Ephes 3. 14. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole Family in Heaven amd Earth is Named That he would grant unto you according to the riches of his Glory to be strength'ned with Might by his Spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your Hearts by Faith Here you have the Father the Word and the Spirit joyned in this great Power of Faith that ye being rooted and grounded in Love that is in the Love of Jesus Christ may be able to comprehend In your Love to him I understand that first groundedness in Love to Christ A Love that constrains us to live to him that dyed for us and then may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and heigth And to know the love of Christ which passeth Knowledg O! That great Mistery of the Gospel And partâ—cularly that we may know the love of Christ which passeth Knowldg And hereby we may come to be filled with all the fulness of God O! who is able to bring this great work into our Hearts VVhy the Apostle therefore concludes Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the Power that worketh in us It is he that works in us Pray take notice of that Rememember that he works above all that we ask or think And yet it is a Power works in us that we may find and see it and have experience of it Vnto him be Glory saith he in the Church by Jesus Christ throughout all Ages World without end Amen The End of the fifth Sermon THE FAITH BY WHICH We are Iustified c. The Sixth Sermon Rom. 5. 1. Therefore being justified by Faith we have Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ FRom these words I have pitch'd upon that great point and Doctrine of Justifying Faith Or of that Faith by which we are Justifyed And this Faith it eyes Christ in a Peculiar manner As I prov'd from John 17. 7 8. Far they have known concerning me that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them as so given unto me and have known surely that I came out from thee and they have believed that thou didst send me So here is a Constant Eye of Faith upon Christ As I told you there had never been such a Notion of Faith in Scripture-sense in Gospel sense if it had not been for Christ if he the Mediator had not been given I have spoken of it as it is Faith by which we are justified And the Grounds why it is Faith that justifies here meant which I had not mentioned before to you but rather depended upon other Scriptures for I shall give you now viz. Why this Faith or believing is to be understood of the Faith that justifies Even out of that John 17. 7 8. And the Reason I give for it is because it is the Faith upon which Christ intercedes Pray observe it Christ Intercedes for believers upon the Faith that believers know surely and believe concerning Jesus Christ For in the very next words you may observe it I pray for them saith he I pray not for the world So he intercedes for them They have known and believed that Christ did surely come forth from God and that all things of Christ are Divine infinitely Divine Originally Divine Now therefore upon whatsoever Christ intercedes Pray Consider In the very same line our foundation for Righteousness and acceptance through Christ rests His justifying Righteousness and Redemption and his intercession run all upon one line together That 's a plain point they go together I 'll give you but two places of Scripture because I would not prevent my self in what I have especially to discourse of One is Heb. 9. It is plain by all Scripture that the blood of Christ is that great price of our Redemption And that we are justified freely by the Grace of God God Setting forth Christ as a Propitiaton through Faith in his blood Now you shall find that Christ entred by his blood into Heaven Heb. 9. 12. But by his own blood he entred in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us Christ intercedes now in Heaven and in the Holy place into that Holy place made without hands He entred to interceed And again ver 24. Christ entred not into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true but into heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us So that he intercedes plainly upon his blood For where he intercedes he entered by his blood And in 1 John 2. 1. You also have the advocateship and the Propitiation of Christ Joyn'd together My little children these things write I unto you that ye sin not And if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father viz. Jesus Christ the Righteous And he is the Propitiation for our Sins c. Therefore this is the clear ground I bottom this Truth upon Upon what Christ intercedes That is certainly Justifying Now he intercedes upon the Faith of Believers I pray for them I pray not for the World viz. For them who know surely and believe in me I have endeavoured to open Faith also to you so that you may have a right understanding that Faith does not Justify as it is an Act of ours or a Grace in us or any thing in us but only by its receiving the Righteousness of Christ I came to speak of the Assurance of Faith They have known And they have surely known And they have believed that thou didst send me Knowledg or as the Learned speak and the great Men of Reason call it Science is the highest degree of Understanding Now this our Lord attributes to Faith in that John 17. They have known For Christ did not come meanly down when he had said They have
known and then said They believed But Faith is a furely knowing And therefore I proposed in the last Discourse to speak of the Assurance of Faith as it is a full Assurance of Vnderstanding as I opened to you from Col. 2. 2. 2. A full assurance of Faith in the Pardon and Forgiveness of Sin As I opened to you from Heb. 10. 22. 3. A full assurance of Hope That I did not speak to before But this of all things is most generally agreed That the Servants of Christ may come to a full Assurance of Hope No one will deny that to a Christian that he should have a full Assurance of Hope now and when he comes to Die I say of hope Men will say you may may hope but you must not take upon you to be Assured beyond Hope Now indeed Full Assurance of Hope is a very great Assurance is a very great and excellent kind of Assurance I might give you several Scriptures that speak of this As 1. Pet. 1. 3. He calls it a Living Hope Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath begotten us again unto a living hope We Translate it a lively Hope But if Living will Agrandize the thing and make it more Emphatical the Original is a living Hope A hope that does not die when we die that does not die when our Spirits are Languid and our Eyes are ready to close and all the Terrors of Death are about us yet this Hope will survive So the Apostle calls it A good Hope through Grace and a Hope that makes not ashamed That 's another Expression And now this great Assurance of Hope you shall see on whom or wherein the Apostle places it Col. 1. 27. last words of that verse which is Christ in you the Hope of Glory So as I have shew'd you all along Faith is wholly depending upon Christ And all its Power and Excellency is in Christ Now can you have a fuller Expression That the full assurance of Hope in Christ Christ in you the hope of Glory It is he himself that bears up this Hope Alas This Hope could no more Live than the Hope of the Hypocrite as Job calls it that is but like a Spiders Web And that is but like a Stream cut off by the Drought of Summer So would Hope be But Christ is in his Servants the Hope of Glory therefore their Hope Lives But because I have designed otherwise the Discourse at this time and that another great point is before us I shall Address my self wholly to that And that is The Assurance of Holy Action The full Assurance Which I grounded in a former Discourse upon the Generals I was to lay down upon that of the Apostle in the 2 Thes 1. 11. Wherefore also we Pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of his calling and fulfil that he would give you a Plerophoria all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of Faith with Power that the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be Glorified in you and ye in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ Here every one may see plainly that here is a mighty work of God through the Heart into the Lives and Conversations of his People and that it is carried on with a full sail by God And then as I told you in the 11th to the Heb. the Apostle goes throughout that Chapter upon the Action of Faith And therefore if any one would Expound as I said to you that in the 2d of James A man is Justified not by Faith only but by works He should compare it with this of the Apostle in the 11th to the Hebrews For there are the works of Faith Recorded and Recollected all along By which the Elders obtained a good report a great Fame a great Renown Therefore for the opening of this to you because indeed it is a difficult point and that which seems to shake all that I have spoken of our being Justified not by Faith as a work but only as Christ chooses to Unite the Soul to himself and so to Communicate his Righteousness his Obedience and the Value and Merit of his Sufferings by Faith for when the Apostle James shall lay down in such express terms that a Man is Justified not by Faith only but by VVorks and shall Discourse it so as he has done in that James 2. 14. to the very end of that Chapter It looks like a very great Objection And the Enemies of Free Grace and of the Justifying Grace of God by his own Righteousness in Jesus Christ make that Chapter as I may say the Top-gallant of all their Discourse It is the great and mighty Fort to which they retire upon all occasions Therefore these three Heads of Discourse I hope within the limits of Time that is alloted tho it may seem something strait to make out to you First of all I would lay down to you what are properly the works of Faith Secondly I would shew you how the works of Faith are Dependent upon Christ and upon his Righteousness And then Thirdly I would clear to you how the Apostle James Discourses so much of VVorks and that Faith only can do us no good To clear that to you and so to conclude with a brief Application of it I begin with the first and that is to shew you the VVorks of Faith in general and I shall do little more than point and direct your Thoughts to these great concernments because there will not be opportunity to handle them so fully and at large The first kind of the Works of Faith is this Those Acts of Faith which do immediately concern our Receiving of Jesus Christ and the taking of himself and his Righteousness These as I told you might be called the immanent Acts of Faith Those nearest closest privatest Acts of Faith between Christ and the Soul betwixt Christ himself and the Soul it self For I look upon it thus and I desire you to mind it Whatever Faith is not the Faith of God's Elect of God's Operation A Faith of the Operation of God it certainly misses in this first Act Pray consider in this first Act of taking Christ It is certain the first Activity of Faith is in Uniting to Christ in taking him for our Head for our Husband in laying hold upon his Righteousness as in a Reflex Returning Act of the Soul its taking receiving Christ giving himself Now a false Faith misses here it does not take Christ It thinks it takes him and does not take him It is but Faith in a Dream as the Prophet speaks The Hungry Man dreams that he Eats and he awakes and behold he is Empty and he Dreams he Drinks and wakes and finds himself scorched with thirst So a Man Dreams he takes Christ but he misses him And lo nothing is in his hand I shall presently speak how far we may Judg by the Action of Faith