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
it flows from Faith in Jesus Christ That is the true Holiness that comes in by Faith in Jesus Christ that Derives from Christ and is conveyed to us by Faith So that if you enquire How shall I come to be Holy I do not deny that all the Rules of the word of God are of great help and assistance herein But yet still I say that the Centre and the Root and the Fountain and the Well-spring of All is Jesus Christ And therefore we find in that 1 Cor. 1. 30. a place often to be remembred and mentioned when we are speaking of these things Of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption He is made VVisdom and Sanctification The first being in a Soul by VVisdom it is from Christ He is the Wisdom by which a Man considers the madness and folly of all the ways of Sin and engages therefore into the ways of Holiness Christ is his Wisdom to do it He is the Wisdom of Faith and the Wisdom of Repentance The Wisdom by which a Soul seeing its lost state in it self its unholy and corrupt state in it self It comes to say Where shall I have a change of this State and Condition And it sees Christ to be the only Foundation of it And therefore the Power of Holiness it comes in by Believing you find therefore how often Christ is pleased to speak of himself such words as do certainly imply the Power of Holiness to be from himself As now John 14 6. He comprehends all those in himself saith Christ I am the way the Truth and the Life No Man c. Take these words either in the point of Justification or in the point of Calling or in the point of Sanctification or take them in the highest Glory of Saints it is very true Christ is the way the Truth and the Life Now He is the way in regard of Sanctification And he hath the mighty Power of all that Life of Holiness of all that Life of Grace derived from himself So that indeed when we find our Graces to be either in a declining or in a low State or when we find our selves under any Temptation or when we find our selves to be to grapple and contest with things that Flesh and Blood cannot tell how to contest with our great Wisdom is to run to Christ for Power for the Power of Grace for strength of Grace to do it and to depend upon him wholly for it For As I shew'd you last day That a Servant of Christ a true Believer in Christ he is Crucified with him Even as to the point of Justification he is upon the Cross together with Christ he comes under the sentence of Guilt with Christ and all his own Righteousness is is slain Why so in the very same manner all his Lusts they are brought under by the mighty Efficacy of Truth that is in Jesus Christ As now in the Epistle to the Galatians chap. 6. you shall find where the great Power of Crucifying of our Lusts is It is certainly by our Being in Christ I say it is certainly the Being of the Soul in Christ that Crucifies all these Saith the Apostle Gal. 5. 24. They that are Christ's pray observe have crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts. They that are Christs have done it A Man does not become Christs by Crucifying his Lusts and Affections But because his is Christs therefore he has Power from Christ to crucify his Lusts and Affections This is a great Truth they that are Christ's have crucified their Lusts and Affections Their sinful Lusts and Affections And in the 6th chap. of the Gallatians saith the Apostle as he said before That he was crucified with Christ so he says in this chapter Gal. 6. 17. From henceforth let no Man trouble me for I bear in my Body the marks of the Lord Jesus And ver 14. God forbid that I should Glory in any thing save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world You see here how plainly the Power of Christ is that that crucifies Lust and crucifies the love of the World Here is our great misery our great unhappiness in the Power of corruption over us That we do not receive Christ And then Ephes 4. 20 21. When the Apostle had set out the exceeding evil conversation of the Heathen He saith ye have not so learned Christ If so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus That ye put off concerning the former conversation which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts I do most sincerely acknowledg that all the Scripture and the Gospel of Christ and all the commands and Admonitions and Exhortations and Reproofs of it and all the Terrible Expressions of it they are all I do acknowledg of great use of great influence in an Holy Life But yet it is all through the Spring in whom they are and thro' that mighty Power in whom they are And therefore we do but go down to the Philistines Forges when we go in the Power of Mortification and being crucified to the Affections of the Flesh when we do not look to Christ as the Principle hereof He is the Sanctification of Believers And so in the 1 Cor. 6. 9. Such were some of you saith the Apostle having spoken of the greatest sinners But ye are washed but ye are Sanctified but ye are Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Abundance of Scripture might be added to this that shew that the Powers of Sanctification and Holiness of Life are all in Christ who makes perfect in every good Work to do the will of God and works in us that which is well pleasing in his sight So that I say again We do not become Christs by doing these things But we do them because we are Christs because a Power and a Might flows from him and from his Blood to do it by O that therefore we may know the true Method and Order of being Holy It is certainly of first being Christ's And if we are strangers to Christ we shall be strangers to Holiness and of all the ways of Purity without him Let us therefore lye under this Rich Redemption of Jesus Christ in setting us free from the Plague of our own Hearts and from the evil of our Lives And then I beseech you consider further for this is most necessary to be understood that all the Reasons Rules Measures and Arguments of Holiness Christ hath brought them all under himself For that Law of Holiness that God planted in the Heart of Man that Law of Holiness that is given out every where in his Word all that is derived from thence it is all now come under Jesus Christ and under his mighty Power The Law came by Moses but Grace and the Power
Pardon of Sin in his Blood Righteousness and Justification as I shall after shew you and therefore we should always look to his Person And then In the third and last place I shall desire if we love Christ let us love these Truths of Christ and these Manifestations of Christ Because they are gloomy there 's a great gloom upon them you may plainly perceive not only among the Heathens Mahometans Antichristians and Papists But there is a gloom among Protestants they are not so clear so bright so lively and excellent among us as in themselves For if these things I have spoken of be true It is certain here 's the Oriency of the Gospel here 's the Pearl of great Price Jesus Christ And our Souls should close with and cling to Him Now because there is a Fog and Mist about these things how earnestly should we pray for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ For then these things will come into their Glory into their Beauty into their Perfection And therefore I say if we love Christ our Souls should earnestly desire that this Kingdom of Christ should appear For then as I have often told you the New Song shall be sung as it were a New Song It was as it were lost and shall be recovered again and therefore it is as it were a new Song The first thing in the Kingdom of Christ I beseech you remember it remember it is spoken to you this day and I hope that many of us may live to see the thing the first thing that shall be after the Kingdom of Christ shall be known shall be the Voice of Harpers with their Harps so loud as it were the Voyce of Thunder this As it were a New Song of the Redempiion of Jesus Christ c. The End of the First Sermon THE FAITH BY WHICH We are Iustified c. The Second Sermon Rom. 5. 1. Therefore being justified by Faith we have Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ THE great point of Discourse that I have singled from these words is to open to you the Nature of that Eminent and Transcendant Grace of the Gospel the Grace of Faith which our Lord hath an especial respect to in these words John 17. 7 8. They have known 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 receied them that is they have received them by Faith and have known surely that I came out from thee and they have believed them that thou didst send me They have known surely and they have believed that thou didst send me They have Believed Knowing and Believing are here United one with another because of that sure Knowledg and that strong demonstration of Faith gives to the Souls of his People And then Secondly Here 's the great Object of this Faith For they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee Whatsoever thou hast given me the things are of thee And the words which thou gavest me they have received them And they have known surely that I came out from thee and that thou did'st send me Jesus Christ is the Supreme Object of Faith as he is one with the Father and hath come into the World as the Mediator and Redeemer of lost and undone Sinners Thereforâ— I have undertaken in the first Place to make out this to you that the proper Object of Faith is the Mediator and that Faith came in with the Mediator and subsisted wholly in him and upon him And if you take away the Mediator Faith becomes a meer Nullity a meer nothing There is the same and far greater Conjunction betwixt Christ and Faith than there is between the Eye and Light As you know the Eye is nothing without Light so Faith is nothing without that great Light the Mediator This I began to open to you First In that Jesus Christ is the Supreme Revelation of God For Faith by those that strictly Define it or Describe it it is an Assent to Divine Revelation Now the great Revelation of God it is Jesus Christ He is the great Truth the Alpha and Omega of Truth And all Truth as I shew'd you depends upon him For there comes in with Jesus Christ a Notion of Truth proper and peculiar to himself All the great Truths of Scripture Indeed there are notable Intimations and great Representations in all the Holy ways of God in which the Soul of Man was at first Created But the great Subject of Truth it is the Truth that comes in with Christ As I shew'd you he saith of himself He is The Truth And even Natural Truth as I abundantly shew'd you it comes under Christ Natural Truth that Truth that there is an everlasting Being That God is This comes under Christ It removes as it were from being a Natural Truth and it comes under Christ Tho it is true there are great Arguments to prove it yet it chooses as it were and delights to come under Christ And so the Truths of Eternity as I shall speak more presently they come under Christ In the Second place as Faith it pitches upon some good upom some grace that is shew'd to the Children of Men so Jesus Christ he is the great object of Faith because all Good it is in him The Promises of Grace they are all in him And therefore that is a great Scripture that I did not mention to you the last day and therefore I beseech you now to take it into great consideration 2 Cor. 1. 20. All the promises of God are in him yea and in him Amen to the Glory of God In him yea and in him Amen All that God hath spoken of Grace and of good will to the Children of Men it is all in Christ All the promises in him are yea and in him they are Amen And he is The Deliverer as I shew'd you from the Wrath to come Christ in you the hope of Glory Col. 1. 27. It is wonderful how all Good is Treasured up in Christ Faith runs to a Promise it runs especially to Grace and to a Revelation of the Infinite Riches of Grace And all is in Jesus Christ Christ in you the hope of Glory I come now to go on In the Third place As Faith is a mighty active Power of Holiness and of New Obedience so it s whole Rest and Trust is in Jesus Christ As the Trust of Faith in whom ye trusted as the Apostle speaks the Trust of Faith in regard of Eternal Life and Salvation so the Activity of Faith flows from the Mediator And as all the Promises or Hopes that we can have of God are in Christ as I shew'd you they come under Christ now as the Redeemer As I instanced to you in that expression That you would saith the Apostle give up your selves unto him as a Faithful Creator That is as a Redeemer So it is in this point All the Holiness of a Christian
And then In the third place It acknowledges all to God back again It gives Glory to him in the Action That that I mean now is setting to the Seal that God is true depending upon Infinite Grace Infinite Power And then when the thing is done it returns all back again to God To him be Glory that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb who Loved and Washed in his Blood To the Holy Spirit as seven Spirits before the Throne It returns all to him And then In the last place It Receives even to Eternity by way of free Communication from God and from Christ And therefore tho there be some kind of Faith I acknowledg that fails as the Apostle saith and ceases in the Happiness and Blessedness of Eternity and of the Kingdom of Christ some kind of Faith doth But yet that Faith whereby the Spirits of Saints even to Eternity receive Glory and Blessedness and Life from God and from Christ That Faith never fails I am very assured when Saints have been ten Thousand Thousand of Ages in Happiness and Blessedness They 'll own it still as Free and pure gift of Grace in and through the Mediator That they are one with the Father through Christ And the Love wherewith the Father Loveth Christ is in them because Christ is in them This never Ceases to Eternity a dependence upon God in Christ a Being in him I shall make but two brief Applications of what I have spoken and so conclude And The First Application I would make of it is To bring all our Hearts to that we read in the Gospel when Peter said to Christ Matt. 18. 22. How often shall my Brother not sin against me and I forgive him Till seven times Jesus saith unto him I say unto thee until seven times but until seventy times seven And in another Evangelist when Christ had said thus to Peter He cries out in the great Sense of this thing It seemed so great a kind of Difficulty and Impossibility to him the forgiving so often Saith Peter upon Christ's saying there must be a forgiving so often Lord encrease our Faith Now this is that I desire every one of us to make use of what I have spoken to you to cry out unto Christ Lord encrease our Faith And another Matt. 9. 24. When the Father had brought his Children to Christ and Christ told him All things are possible to him that Believes straight-way the Father of the Child cryed out and said with Tears Lord I believe help mine unbelief So I say O that we could cry out with Tears If Faith be such a thing as certainly it is or this Book of God is not true I say certainly Faith is such a thing as I have described O that we could cry out with tears in every case I have named to you O Lord I Believe Help thou my unbelief That we could cry out with Tears O! Want of Faith is the great want among us all We have not so much Faith as a Grain of Mustard-Seed certainly O How therefore are there not great things done among us because we believe not No great things done in our Souls no great things done for us in a way of Providence There are no great and mighty Conquests over Lusts and Corruptions No great and mighty Powers of Holiness and Heavenliness because we want Faith Indeed Men go to work without Faith and they think they can manage the thing But as I hope to have opportunity to shew you No one in the World can make so much as a grain of Mustard seed so not so much Faith as would amount to a grain of Mustard seed O! therefore Let us cry out to Heaven for more Faith We should obtain Promises we should have great things done if we had but more Faith And then The Second thing with which I conclude to beseech you to look to that Kingdom and Glory of Christ wherein so much mighty Power both of Faith and Action shall be given Psal 46. 1. God is our Refuge and Strength a very present help in trouble therefore will we not fear tho the Earth he removed c. We should not be so intimidated so full of fear if we had but Faith Tho the Waters c. even when Mountains were thrown in the midst of the Sea and the Waves Roaring yet there shall be a still silent stream that shall make glad the City of our God The End of the Second Sermon THE FAITH BY WHICH We are Iustified c. The Third and Fourth Sermons Rom. 5. 1. Therefore being justified by Faith we have Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ I Have in the former Discourses set out the Nature and Excellency of Faith as it hath so close an Union with and derivation from Christ in the whole Nature and Action of it Now I shall go on in shewing you how much All is in Christ and not in Faith it self by shewing you That if you consider Faith as in it self it cannot be that which Justifies if you consider it in and by it self And then In the Second Place I shall more plainly lay down to you how and upon what account Faith is said to Justifie And then In the third Place I shall shew you that if Faith it self considered in it self cannot Justify Then the works of Faith tho they be never so excellent they cannot Justify much less then faith it self And so conclude this point with the Application And then there will remain one point more concerning Faith And that 's the Plerophory and full Assurance They have known surely that I came out from thee and they have believed that thou didst send me But that will be the last point The First thing therefore that I shall endeavour not in a Controversal but in a Practical Applicatory way and in all the Sweetness of it to all our hearts in the power and life and vertue of it The First thing that I lay down is this that Faith considered as a work It cannot Justify The account that I give you of it is this That Scripture doth every where when it speaks precisely and clearly to the point It doth assure us it is the Righteousness of God And not the Faith that takes the Righteousness of God I desire to be very far from stirring up any Controversy But to draw out our hearts I say into the Sweetness of it Head 1. I begin now therefore to handle this great Point and that is Seeing we meet every where in Scripture with these Expressions Justified by Faith The Righteousness of Faith The great Question that I shall handle first shall be to shew you how and in what sense Faith justifies and in what sense it cannot be said to justifie For indeed this is a point very necessary to be cleared seeing many are ready to say That Faith is now instead of Righteousness and that it justifies as the perfect Righteousness of the Law should have done