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           Fifth.  Faith brings in succours when other graces fail.  Two ways the Christian’s graces may fail—in their activity, or in their evidence.

1. In their activity, it is low water sometimes with the Christian.  He cannot act so freely and vigorously then as at another time when the tide runs high, through divine assistances that flow in a main upon him.  Those temptations which he could at one time snap asunder as easily as Samson did his cords of flax, at another time he is sadly hampered with that he cannot shake them off.  Those duties which he performs with delight and joy, when his grace is in a healthful plight; at another time he pants and blows at, as much as a sick man doth to go up a hill—so heavily doth he find them come off.  Were not the Christian, think you, ill now on it, if he had no com­ings in but from his own shop of duty?  Here now is the excellency of faith; it succours the Christian in this his bankrupt condition.  As Joseph got over his brethren to him, and nourished them out of his gran­aries all the time of famine, so doth faith the Christian in his penury of grace and duty.  And this it doth in two ways.

           (1.) By laying claim to the fulness of that grace which is in Christ as its own.  Why art thou dejected, O my soul, saith the Christian’s faith, for thy weak grace?  There is enough in Christ, all fulness dwells in him, it pleased the Father it should be so, and that to pleasure thee in thy wants and weaknesses.  It is a ministerial fulness; as the clouds carry rain not for themselves but the earth, so doth Christ his fulness of grace for thee.  ‘He is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,’ I Cor. 1:30.  When the rags of the Christian’s own righteousness discourage and shame him, faith hath a robe to put on that covers all this uncomeliness. ‘Christ is my righteousness,’ saith faith, and ‘in Him’ we are ‘complete,’ Col. 2:10.  Faith hath two hands, a working hand a receiving hand; and the receiving hand relieves the working hand, or else there would be a poor house kept in the Christian’s bosom.  We find Paul himself but in a starving condition, for all the comfort his own graces could with their earnings afford him.  He is a wretched man in his own account, if these be all he hath to live upon, Rom. 7:24; yet even then, when he sees nothing in his own cup­board, his faith puts forth his receiving hand to Christ, and he is presently set at a rich feast, for which you find him giving thanks, ver. 25, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

           (2.)  Faith succours the Christian in the weakness and inactivity of his graces, by applying the promises for the saints’ perseverance in grace.  It brings great comfort to a sick man, though very weak at present, to hear his physician tell him, that though he is low and feeble, yet there is no fear he will die. The present weakness of grace is sad, but the fear of falling quite away is far sadder.  Now faith, and only faith, can be the messenger to bring the good news to the soul, that it shall persevere.  Sense and reason are quite posed and dunced here.  It seems impossible to them, that such a bruised reed should bear up against all the counterblasts of hell, because they consider only what grace itself can do, and finding it so over­matched by the power and policy of Satan, think it but rational to give the victory  to the stronger side. But faith, when it seeth symptoms of death in the saint’s grace, finds life in the promise, and comforts the soul with this—that the faithful God will not suf­fer his grace to see corruption.  He hath undertaken the physicking of his saints: ‘Every branch in me that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit’ John 15:2.  When Hazael came to inquire of Elisha for his sick master, whether he should live or die; the prophet sent him with this answer back unto the king his master: ‘Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely die,’ II Kings 8:10—that is, he might certainly recover for all his disease, but he should die by the traitorous bloody hand of Hazael his servant.  Give me leave only to allude to this.  When the Christian consults with his faith, and inquires of it, whether his weak grace will fail or hold out, die or live, faith's answer is, ‘Thy weak grace may certainly die and fall away, but the Lord hath showed me it shall live and persevere’ —that is, in regard of its own weakness and the muta­bility of man’s nature, the Christian’s grace might certainly die and come to nothing; but God hath shown faith in the promise that it shall certainly live and recover out of its lowest weakness.  What David said in regard of his house, that every Christian may say in regard of his grace.  ‘Though his grace be not so with God (so strong, so unchangeable in itself), yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire,’ II Sam. 23:5.  This salt of the covenant is it shall keep, saith faith, thy weak grace from corrup­tion. ‘Why art thou cast down,’ saith the psalmist, ‘O my soul? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God,’ Ps. 42:11.  The health of David's countenance was not in his countenance, but in his God, and this makes his faith silence his fears, and so peremptorily resolve upon it, that there is a time coming—how near soever he now lies to the grave’s mouth—when he shall yet praise him.  ‘The health and life of thy grace lie both of them, not in thy grace,’ saith faith, ‘but in God, who is thy God, therefore I shall yet live and praise him.’  I do not wonder that the weak Christian is mel­ancholy and sad when he sees his sickly face in any other glass but this.

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           Third.  Faith defends the Christian in the exer­cise of all his graces.  ‘By faith we stand,’ Rom. 11:20. As a soldier under the protection of his shield stands his ground and does his duty, notwithstanding all the shot that are made against him to drive him back. When faith fails, then every grace is put to the run and rout.  Abraham’s simplicity and sincerity, how was it put to disorder when he dissembled with Abim­elech concerning his wife? and why, but because his faith failed him.  Job's patience received a wound when his hand grew weary, and his shield of faith, which should have covered him, hung down.  Indeed, no grace is safe if from under the wing of faith. There­fore, to secure Peter from falling from all grace, Christ tells him, ‘I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not,’ Luke 22:32.  This was the reserve that Christ took care should be kept to recover his other graces when foiled by the enemy, and to bring him off that encounter wherein he was so badly bruised and broken. It is said that Christ could not do many mighty things in his own country ‘because of their unbelief,’ Matt. 13:58.  Neither can Satan do any great hurt to the Christian so long as faith is upon the place.  It is true he aims to fight faith above all, as that which keeps him from coming at the rest, but he is not able long to stand before it.  Let a saint be never so humble, pa­tient, devout, alas!  Satan will easily pick some hole or other in these graces, and break in upon him when he stands in the best array, if faith be not in the field to cover these.  This is the grace that makes him face about and take him to his heels, I Peter 5:9.

           Fourth.  Faith alone procures acceptance with God for all the other graces and their works.  ‘By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice,’ Heb. 11:4.  When a Christian hath wrought hardest in a day, and hath spun the finest, evenest, thread of obedience at the wheel of duty, he is afraid to carry home his work at night with an expectation of any ac­ceptance at God’s hands for his work’s sake.  No, it is faith he makes use of to present it through Christ to God for acceptance.  We are said, I Peter 2:5, ‘To offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ;’ That is, by faith in Christ, for without faith Christ makes none of our sacrifices acceptable.  God takes nothing kindly but what the hand of faith pre­sents.  And so prevalent is faith with God, that he will take light gold—broken services—at her hand; which, were they to come alone, would be rejected with in­dignation.  As a favourite that hath the ear of his prince, finds it easy to get his poor kindred entertained at court also (so Joseph brought his brethren into Pharaoh's presence with great demonstrations of favour shown them by him for his sake; and Esther wound Mordecai into a high preferment in Ahasu­erus’ court, who upon his own credit could get no far­ther than to sit at the gate), thus faith brings those works and duties into God's presence, which else were sure to be shut out, and, pleading the righteousness of Christ, procures them to be received into such high favour with God, that they become his delight, Prov. 15:8, and as a pleasant perfume in his nostrils, Mal. 3:4.

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           Second.  As faith sets the other graces on work by actuating their objects, about which they are con­versant, so it helps them all to work, by fetching strength from Christ to act and reinforce them.  Faith is not only the instrument to receive the righteousness of Christ for our justification, but it is also the great instrument to receive grace from Christ for our sanctification.  ‘Of his fulness...we receive grace for grace,’ John 1:16.  But how do we receive it?  Even by faith.  Faith unites the soul to Christ; and as by a pipe laid close to the mouth of a fountain water is carried to our houses for the supply of the whole family, so by faith is derived to the soul supply in abundance for the particular offices of all the several graces.  He that believes, ‘out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,’ John 7:38.  That is, he that hath faith, and is careful to live in the exercise of it, shall have a flow and an increase of all other graces, called here ‘living waters.’  Hence it is that the saints, when they would advance to a high pitch in other graces, pray for the increase of their faith.  Our Saviour, Luke 17:3, 4, sets  his apostles a very hard lesson when he would wind up their love to such a high pitch as to forgive their offending brother ‘seven times’ in a day.  Now mark, ver. 5—‘The apostles,’ apprehending the difficulty of the duty, ‘said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.’  But why did they rather not say, ‘Increase our love,’ see­ing that was the grace they were to exercise in forgiving their brother?  Surely it was not because love hath its increase from faith.  If they could get more faith on Christ, they might be sure they should have more love to their brother also.  The more strongly they could believe on Christ for the pardon of their own sins, not ‘seven,’ but ‘seventy times’ in a day committed against God, the more easy it would be to forgive their brother offending themselves seven times a day. This interpretation, our Saviour’s reply to their pray­er for faith favours, ver. 6 —‘And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.’  Where Christ shows the efficacy of justifying faith by the power of a faith of miracles.  As if he had said, ‘You have hit on the right way to get a for­giving spirit; it is faith indeed that would enable you to conquer the unmercifulness of your hearts. Though it were as deeply rooted in you as this sycamore-tree is in the ground, yet by faith you should be able to pluck it up.’  When we would have the whole tree fruitful, we think we do enough to water the root, knowing what the root sucks from the earth it will soon disperse into the branches.  Thus that sap and fatness, faith, which is the radical grace, draws from Christ, will be quickly diffused through the branches of the other graces, and tasted in the pleasantness of their fruit.

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 First.  Faith finds all the graces with work.  As the rich tradesman gives out his wool, some to this man, and some to that, who all spin and work of the stock he gives them out, so that, when he ceaseth to trade, they must also, because they have no stock but what he affords them,—thus faith gives out to every grace what they act upon.  If faith trades not, neither can they.

           To instance in one or two graces for all the rest. Repentance, this is a sweet grace, but set on work by faith.  Nineveh’s repentance is attributed unto their faith: ‘The people of Nineveh believed God, and pro­claimed a fast, and put on sackcloth,’ Jonah 3:5.  It is very like indeed that their repentance was no more than legal, but it was as good as their faith was.  If their faith had been better, so would their repentance also.  All is whist and quiet in an unbelieving soul; no news of repentance, nor noise of any complaint made against sin till faith begins to stir.  When faith presents the threatening, and binds the truth and terror of it to the conscience, then the sinner hath something to work upon.  As light accentuates colours and brings the eye acquainted with its object, whereupon it falls to work, so doth faith actuate sin in the conscience; now musing thoughts will soon arise, and, like clouds, thicken apace into a storm, till they bespread the soul with a universal blackness of horror and trembling for sin; but then also the creature is at a loss, and can go no further in the business of repentance, while faith sends in more work from the promise by presenting a pardon therein to the returning soul; which no sooner is heard and believed by the creature, but the work of repentance goes on apace.  Now the cloud of horror and terror, which the fear of wrath, from con­sideration of the threatening, had gathered in the conscience, dissolves into a soft rain of evangelical sorrow, at the report which faith makes from the promise.

           Love is another heavenly grace; but faith gathers the fuel that makes this fire.  Speak, Christian, whose soul now flames with love to God, was it always thus? No! sure there was a time, I dare say for thee, when thy heart was cold—not a spark of this fire to be found on the altar of thy heart.  How is this then, Christian, that now thy soul loves God, whom before thou didst scorn and hate?  Surely thou hast heard some good news from heaven, that hath changed thy thoughts of God, and turned the stream of thy love, which ran another way, into this happy channel.  And who can be the messenger besides faith that brings any good news from heaven to the soul?  It is faith that proclaims the promise; opens Christ's excellencies; pours out his name, for which the virgins love him.  When faith hath drawn a character of Christ out of the word, and presented him in his love and love­liness to the soul, now the creature is sweetly invei­gled in his affections to him; now the Christian hath a copious theme to enlarge upon in his thoughts, whereby to endear Christ more and more unto him —‘Unto him that believes, he is precious;’ and the more faith, the ‘more precious,’ I Peter 1:7.  If we should sit in the same room by the dearest friend we had in all the world, and our eyes were held from seeing him, we would take no more notice of him, and give no more respect to him, than to a mere stranger.  But if one should come and whisper {to} us in the ear, and tell us this is such a dear friend of yours, that once laid down his life to save yours, that hath made you heir to all the goodly estate that he hath, will you not show your respect to him?  O how our hearts would work in our breasts, and make haste to come forth in some passionate expression of our dear affection to him!  Yea, how heartily ashamed would we be for our uncivil and unbecoming behav­iour towards him, though occasioned by our ignor­ance of him. Truly thus it is here.  So long as faith’s eye hath a mist before it, or is unactive and as it were asleep in the dull habit, the Christian may sit very nigh Christ in an ordinance, in a providence, and be very little affected with him, and drawn out in loves to him.  But when faith is awake to see him as he pass­eth by in his love and loveliness, and active to make report to the soul of the sweet excellencies it sees in Christ, as also of his dear bleeding love to his soul, the Christian's love now cannot choose but spring and leap in his bosom at the voice of faith, as the babe did in Elizabeth's womb at the salutation of her cousin Mary.

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  Question.  But why is faith rather than any other grace else employed in this act?

           Answer First.  Because there is no grace hath so proper a fitness for this office as faith.  Why hath God appointed the eye to see and not the ear? why the hand to take our food rather than the foot?  It is easily answered, because these members have a par­ticular fitness for these functions and not the other. Thus faith hath a fitness for this work peculiar to itself.  We are justified not by giving anything to God of what we do, but by receiving from God what Christ hath done for us.  Now faith is the only receiving grace, and therefore only fit for this office.

           Answer Second.  There is no grace that God could trust his honour so safely with in this business of justification as with faith.  The great design God hath in justifying a poor sinner is to magnify his free mercy in the eye of his creature.  This is written in such fair characters in the word, that he who runs {to it} may read it.  God was resolved that his free mercy should go away with all the honour, and the creature should be quite cut out from any pretensions to part­nership with him therein.  Now there is no way like to this of being justified by faith, for the securing and safe-guarding of the glory of God's free grace, Rom. 3:25, 26.  When the apostle hath in some verses to­gether discoursed of the free justification of a sinner before God, he goes on to show how this cuts the very comb, yea throat, of all self-exalting thoughts, ver. 27: ‘Where is boasting then?  It is excluded.  By what law? of works?  Nay: but by the law of faith.’  Princes, of all wrongs, most disdain and abhor to see their royal bed defiled.  So jealous they have been of this, that, for the prevention of all suspicion of such a foul fact, it hath been of old the custom of the greatest monarchs, that those who were their favourites, and admitted into nearest attendance upon their own per­sons and queens, should be eunuchs—such whose very disability of nature might remove all suspicion of any such attempt by them.  Truly, God is more jeal­ous of having the glory of his name ravished by the pride and self-glorying of the creature, than ever any prince was of having his queen deflowered.  And therefore to secure it from any such horrid abuse, he hath chosen faith—this eunuch grace, as I may so call it—to stand so nigh him, and be employed by him in this high act of grace, whose very nature, being a self-emptying grace, renders it incapable of entering into any such design against the glory of God’s grace. Faith hath two hands; with one it pulls off its own righ­teousness and throws it away, as David did Saul’s ar­mour; with the other it puts on Christ’s righteousness over the soul's shame, as that in which it dares alone see God or be seen of him.  ‘This makes it impossible,’ saith learned and holy Master Ball, ‘how to conceive that faith and works should be conjoined as concauses in justification; seeing the one—that is faith—attributes all to the free grace of God; the other—that is works—challenge to themselves.  The one, that is faith, will aspire no higher but to be the instrumental cause of free remission; the other can sit no lower, but to be the matter of justification, if any cause at all.  For, if works be accounted to us in the room or place of exact obedience in free justification, do they not supply the place? are they not advanced to the dignity of works complete and perfect in jus­tification from justice?’  Treatise of Covenant of Grace, p. 70.

           Fourth Particular.  The mighty influence, yea universal, that faith hath upon all her sister-graces, speaks her the chief of them all.  What makes the sun so glorious a creature but because it is a com­mon good, and serves all the lower world with light and influence?  Faith is a grace whose ministry God useth as much for the good of the spiritual world in the saints—called in Scripture the 6"4<­ 6JÂF4H, ‘the new creation,’ Gal. 6:15—as he doth the sun for the corporeal.  Nothing is hid from the heat of the sun, Ps. 19:6, and there is no grace that faith’s influence reach­eth not unto.

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           Third Particular.  The high office that faith is set in above other graces, in the business of our jus­tification before God—‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God,’ Rom. 5:1.  Not justified by love, repentance, patience, or any other grace beside faith. O how harsh doth it sound in a Christian ear, justifying patience, justifying repentance!  And if they were concerned with the act of justification, as faith is, the name would as well become them as it doth faith itself.  But we find this appropriated to faith, and the rest hedged out from having to do in the act of justifi­cation, though included and supposed in the person who is justified.  It is faith that justifies without works.  This is Paul’s task to prove, Rom. 3.  But this faith which justifies is not dead or idle, but a lively working faith, which seems to be James’ design in the second chapter of his epistle.  As God did single Christ out from all others to be the only mediator betwixt him and man, and his righteousness to be the meritorious cause of our justification; so he hath singled faith out from all the other graces, to be the instrument or means for appropriating this righ­teousness of Christ to ourselves.  Therefore, as this righteousness is called ‘the righteousness of God,’ and opposed to our ‘own righteousness,’ though wrought by God in us, Rom. 10:3, because it is wrought by Christ for us, but not inherent in us, as the other is; so also it is called ‘the righteousness of faith,’ Rom. 4:11, 13—not the righteousness of repentance, love, or any other grace.  Now, wherefore is it called ‘the righteousness of faith,’ and not of love, repentance, &c.?  Surely, not that faith itself is our righteousness. Then we should be justified by works, while we are justified by faith, contrary to the apostle, who oppos­eth faith and works, Rom. 4.

           In a word, then, we should be justified by a righ­teousness of our own, for faith is a grace inherent in us, and as much our own work as any grace besides is. But this is contrary to the same apostle’s doctrine, Php. 3:9, where our own righteousness, and the righteousness which is by faith, are declared to be inconsistent.  It can therefore be called ‘the righteousness of faith’ for this reason and no other—because faith is the only grace whose office it is to lay hold on Christ, and so to appropriate his righteousness for the justification of our souls.  Christ and faith are relatives which must not be severed.  Christ, he is the treasure, and faith the hand which receives it.  Christ’s righteousness is the robe, faith the hand that puts it on; so that it is Christ who is the treasure.  By his blood he dischargeth our debt, and not by faith; whose office is only to receive Christ, whereby he becomes ours.  It is Christ’s righteousness that is the robe which covers our nakedness, and makes us beau­tiful in God’s eye; only, faith hath the honour to put the robe on the soul, and it is no small honour that is therein put upon it above other graces.  As God graced Moses exceedingly above the rest of his brethren the Israelites, when he was called up the mount to receive the law from God’s mouth, while they had their bounds set them—to stand waiting at the bot­tom of the hill till he brought it down to them; so doth God highly honour faith, to call this up as the grace by whose hand he will convey this glorious privilege of justification over to us.

         

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           Second Particular.  The commendations that are given to faith above other graces.  You shall ob­serve, that in the same action wherein other graces are eminently exercised as well as faith, even then faith is taken notice of, and the crown set upon faith’s head rather than any of the other.  We hear nothing almost of any other grace throughout the whole 11^th of Hebrews but faith.  ‘By faith Abraham,’ ‘by faith Ja­cob,’ and the rest of those worthies, did all those fa­mous exploits.  There was a concurrence of the oth­er graces with faith in them all.  But all goes under the name of faith.  The whole army fight, yet the general or the captain hath the honour of the victory ascribed to him.  Alexander and Cæsar’s names are transmitted to posterity as the great conquerors that overcame so many battles, not the private soldiers that fought under them.  Faith is the captain grace. All those fa­mous acts of those saints are recorded as the achieve­ments of faith.  Thus concerning the centurion, ‘Veri­ly,’ saith Christ, ‘I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,’ Matt. 8:10.  There were other graces very eminent in the centurion besides his faith;—his con­scientious care of his poor servant, for whom he could have done no more if he had been his own child. There are some that call themselves Christians, yet would not have troubled themselves so much for a sick servant.  Such, alas! are oft less regarded in sickness than their master's beast.  But, especially his humility; this shined forth very eminently in that self-abasing expression: ‘Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof,’ Matt. 8:8.  Consider but his calling and degree therein, and it makes his humility more conspicuous.  A swordsman, yea, a commander! such use to speak big and high.  Power is seldom such a friend to humility. Surely he was a man of a rare humble spirit, that he, whose mouth was used so much to words of command over his sol­diers, could so demit and humble himself in his ad­dress to Christ; yet his faith outshines his humility in its greatest strength.  Not, I have not found such humility, but ‘such faith’ in all Israel.  As if Christ had said, ‘There is not one believer in all Israel but I know him, and how rich he is in faith also; but I have not found so much of this heavenly treasure in any one hand as in this centurion’s.’  Indeed the Christian's chief riches is in faith’s hand.  ‘Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith?’ James 2:5. Why rich in faith, rather than rich in patience, rich in love, or any other grace?  O great reason for it, when the creature comes to lay claim to pardon of sin, the favour of God, and heaven itself.  It is not love, pa­tience, &c., but faith alone that lays down the price of all these.  Not ‘Lord, pardon, save me, here is my love and patience for it;’ but ‘here is Christ, and the price of his blood, which faith presents thee for the full purchase of them all.’  This leads to a third particular, and indeed the chief of all.