Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A50243
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The righteousness of God through faith upon all without difference who believe in two sermons on Romans 3, 22 / by Nathaniel Mather ...
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Mather, Nathanael, 1631-1697.
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1694
(1694)
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Wing M1265; ESTC R6790
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55,229
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83
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THE Righteousness of God THROUGH FAITH UPON All without Difference who believe In Two Sermons on Romans 3.22 By NATHANIEL MATHER Preacher of the Gospel LONDON Printed for Nathaniel Hiller at the Princes-Arms in Leaden-Hall-Street over against St. Mary Axe 1694. To the READER I Must acknowledge that when I was called to Preach in that Audience where these Sermons were delivered I had some Debates rolling in my Mind what kind of Subject I should pitch upon There were enow offered to my Thoughts wherein I might have more gratified or at least have less displeased our Neonomians as they are lately named but as truly and justly Semisocinians as the antient Church and all Posterity since hath called the off-spring of Pelagius his Heresie Semi-Pelagians But I saw with grief and detestation the Blessed Gospel of our Salvation craftily and insolently assaulted by them in the very Vitals and Fundamentals of it In publico discrimine omnis homo miles est Every Christian much more every Minister is set for the defence of the Gospel especially at such a time when the Truth labours under guileful and impetuous opposition I doubted my Quiet would be attempted and my Doctrine and Reputation would be angrily reflected on As to the last though I value it and believe I ought to do so yet I can truly say convictions that I ought to sacrifice both that and my Quiet to the service of the labouring Truth of God had their weight with me My Heart hath been long fixed in this Principle that Reputation is little to be valued save only so far as it may be of service unto Christ and if he have any use to make of it he will preserve it while I walk before him in Integrity With him I have thus left it and having so done my Heart is secure and at rest about it As to my Quiet I confess I do prize and love it as remembring Prov. 17.14 and 18.6 but to Maintain and Preach that Precious and Saving Truth which the Churches of Christ have been in possession of ever since the Reformation is not entring into contention especially when some abandon it and others indeavour to wrest it from us And there is a contending and that earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints which is a Duty Besides I am not far from that place where the weary are at rest and the wicked cease from troubling the thoughts whereof I confess are sweeter to me because I have very sadning apprehensions of the portendency of that apostasie from the Truth which hath invaded so many of the rising Generation not among Conformists only but Dissenters also As to my Quiet I have this relief that it is not in the power of any mortal to interrupt or disturb my inward composedness of Spirit or to lay me under any law of unquietness within my self I know and am assured that a due exercise of Faith Meekness Self-denyedness and such like Graces will establish my Heart in a just and holy unconcernedness though such representations should still be made of me for these Sermons sake as to fill my Friends in other Lands to whom I am known with trouble and consternation I use the very words of a Letter wherein I am informed that such Reports have been sent even so far As to the Doctrine delivered in these Sermons it hath been of use to me for the direction and guidance of my Heart in transacting with God about Pardon and Acceptance to Eternal Life I hope it may be so unto others My Hope my Life my Salvation my All is therein I have not delivered any thing but what I know and am assured is according to the Eternal Truth of God and wherein I have going before me as great Lights as any that God in these latter Ages hath set up in his Church How little or rather nothing I have varied in what is Printed from what was delivered in Preaching I must leave to those that shall read and did hear them I have heard of two Passages that have been taxed Of them therefore I have in a short Postscript given a further account As to the Publishing of them in Print if the Doctrine delivered in them be the Truth of God as I believe it is I need not make any Apology Many that know me know my backwardness to appear in Print Nevertheless in thus Publishing these Sermons my Heart condemns me not knowing that I have therein only indeavoured to communicate in a more diffusive and induring way that Truth the Faith whereof I have received and wherein I have many Years lived and in which I hope and am perswaded I shall dye and which it is of concernment to have preserved and propagated The Blessing of him whose Truth it is go along therewith London this 14th of the 2d Month 1694. Nath. Mather ERRATA PAge 20. line 3. for in is read is in l. 9. a fine r. 1 John 2.1 l. 6. a fine f not p. 21. l. 7. a fine r. comprizing under them his Graces p. 25. l. 4. put the comma after is p. 26. l. 2. dele of p. 27. l. 4. a fine r. 2 Pet. 3.11 p. 31. f. namely r. only p. 36. l. 9. a fine f. John 15.19 r. John 15.9 p. 39. l. 14. their r. there l. 10. a fine f. they do not r. they who do not p. 42. l. 16. r. â— 28 p. 43. l. 7. f. might r. weight f. Psal 88.8 r. Psal 88.7 p. 59. l. 20. r. Phil. 3.12 ROM 3.22 Even the Righteousness of God which is by Faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference IN the first five Chapters of this Epistle the Apostle sets himself to declare and clear up the great Doctrine of Justification And he first speaks to it Negatively shewing and evincing that by the deeds of the Law there shall no Flesh be justified in the sight of God which is the conclusion and sum of all his foregoing Discourse as you may see at the 20th Verse of this Chapter Having made out that neither Jew nor Gentile can ever be justified by the Deeds of the Law he declares affirmatively in the Verse before the Text and so onward how it is then that men may be Justified and he shews that it is by the righteousness of God manifested without the Law yet witnessed to by the Law and by the prophets that is by the Books of Moses and the rest of the Old Testament But how come men to be justified by this Righteousness manifested without the Law and thus witnessed unto This the Apostle declares in the words of the Text telling us that this righteousness is through faith upon all that beleeve and that without difference There is no need in order to what I intend to say any thing for explaining of the meaning of any of the words of the Text. The Doctrine which I design to speak to from them is plain and obvious and it is
for our believing saith he not by way of Merit not of Debt yet in way of reward Another who speaks clearly and less covertly saith expresly that God justifies and saves none but for their believing And another who searched and saw as far as either of them and speaks out saith plainly that we are Pardon'd Justified and Adopted to Eternal Life as a reward to Believers for their Faith and Obedience And withal tells us in the same Book that Reward and Merit are Relatives so as that wherever there is Reward following there Merit went before and that there is no Reward but it is a Reward of Merit 'T is true indeed he will have the Merit of our repenting and believing but a subordinate Merit and Christ's the principal But what is this better than the old Popish Notion that Christ Merited that we might Merit and we Merit in the virtue of his Blood and by Gods Grace And indeed he expresly owns this Tenet of theirs But surely this is another Gospel that we are pardoned justified adopted and vested in the Priviledges of the New Covenant Estate as a reward of or for our believing repenting or new obedience and a Doctrine grosser than many Learned Papists hold as great Merit-mongers as they are For they insist upon it as one condition requisite unto Merit that the Person Meriting the Reward must first be in a State of Grace and Favour with God and therefore Justification and Adoption cannot be Merited by us nor are conferred upon us as a reward of any thing that we do Yea methinks it is a very pernicious and Soul-destroying Error if there be or ever have been any such in the World For if a Mans Heart be influenced by it and moulded according to it in all his treating with God and applications to him for pardon of Sin and Justification and adoption he is wholly led aside quite off from the way of the Gospel and it is utterly impossible he should ever truely believe For Faith receives and looks for Union to Christ interest in this righteousness of his pardon of Sin Justification and Adoption not as a reward for or of any thing that we do but meerly of Free Grace and wholly for the sake of Christ and his righteousness I conclude therefore that though this Word Condition may be used and is so by some in a sound sense and with a good meaning concerning Faith and its reference to the righteousness of Christ being upon us yet it is neither convenient nor safe For it may occasion an unhappy stumbling and a Soul-ruining mistake And therefore I cannot but joyn with that great Divine Dr. Tho. Goodwin on Eph. 2. Serm. 22. p. 301. who wisheth it were laid aside and wholly disused because there is danger in it or at least if men be impotently fond of the word that it were both more soundly meant and better explained than it is by our present Contenders for it 3. The generality of all those that own the righteousness of Christ being upon us as that wherein we stand justified have used to express the influence of Faith thereunto by that word Instrument So the Westminster Assembly do both in their Confession and in their Catechism Nor have I seen any thing alledged against expressing it by that word that amounts to any more but that the word is not strictly and precisely proper in the same sense wherein it is used in other cases which for my part I will easily grant But what then Ars posterior prioris utitur operâ Artes in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concrescunt We must of necessity and are warranted by the practise of the Holy Ghost to use Figures and Tropes in speaking of and declaring the Truths of God It is al 's readily granted that the word instrument is not found in Scripture used matter But yet for all that it may be a word of the Holy Ghosts Teaching for it is suited and apt to declare and let in into our Minds the true Notion and conception of what the Scripture declares to be the reference of Faith unto our Justification The Scripture saith it is by and through and of Faith yea it saith that God justifies us by Faith and through Faith I know no word that doth so well express the work and use of Faith in this matter which the Holy Ghost sets forth by receiving Joh. 1.11 12. Rom. 5.11 17. where we are said to receive Christ and to receive his Righteousness and the Atonement made thereby An expression that speaks both our having it or being possessed of it and the means or way on our part wherein it is effected or brought about viz. that it is by and in such a like acting of our Hearts towards Christ and his Righteousness as answers the work of the Hand in taking and receiving a corporeal thing offer'd to us and by our taking it made ours For my part as on the one hand I would not be needlesly tenacious of a word where we can as well retain and express the Truth without it so on the other hand I cannot but observe that all those even to a Man not one as far as I remember to be excepted who quarrel with that word instrument and wrangle to bring in the word condition in this business of our Justification and Christs Righteousness being upon us do labour under that Covert to bring in withal a very weighty and momentous alteration in the substance of the Doctrine of the Gospel For they would also bring in other things viz. Repentance and Love and new Obedience as Conditions of our Justification as well as Faith and as the Righteousness which is imputed to us and wherein we stand And they are generally for a conditional Redemption also and many of them for a conditional Election too 4. I shall therefore waving those dissatisfying words set before you what I conceive to be the Truth of God in this matter briefly in a few Propositions concerning the reference that Faith hath unto the Righteousness of Christ being upon us Onely premising two things First That I am speaking of possession or actual injoyment of this righteousness of Christ not of right or title to it Right and Possession are different things and therefore things of a different Nature and may be one without the other Rutherf of the Covenants p. 231 232. Faith hath no influence no not so much as in a way of instrumentality to confer upon us a right and title to Christs Righteousness all the influence that Faith hath in this matter is onely unto our actual Possession of it which the Holy Ghost calls our having it Phil. 3.9 and here in the Text its being upon us Secondly This Possession or having this Righteousness of Christ the reference of Faith whereunto I am speaking of is that having it which is unto Justification of Life and that as the next and immediate effect of this Righteousness being thus upon us It is having