SECOND. THAT MAN CAN BE JUSTIFIED FROM THE CURSE BEFORE GOD, WHILE SINNERS IN THEMSELVES, BY NO OTHER RIGHTEOUSNESS THAN THAT LONG AGO PERFORMED BY, AND REMAINING WITH, THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
Fourth. I might add, that living by faith is the way to receive fresh strength from heaven, thereby to manage thine every day’s work with life and vigor; yea, every look by faith upon Jesus Christ, as thine, doth this great work. When Paul saw the brethren that came to meet him, ‘he thanked God and took courage’ (Acts 28:15). O! how much more, then, shall the Christian be blessed with fresh strength and courage even at the beholding of Christ; whom ‘beholding as in a glass,’ we ‘are changed,’ even by beholding of him by faith in the word, ‘into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’ (2 Cor 3:18). But to be brief.
Fifth. Make conscience of the duty of believing, and be as afraid of falling short here as in any other command of God. ‘This is his commandment, that you believe’ (1 John 3:23). Believe, therefore, in the name of the Lord Jesus. This is the will of God, that you believe. Believe, therefore, to the saving of the soul (John 6:46). Unbelief is a fine-spun thread, not so easily discerned as grosser sins; and therefore, that is true ‘The sin that doth so easily beset us’ (Heb 12:1). The light of nature will show those sins that are against the law of nature, but the law of faith is a command beyond what flesh or nature teaches; therefore to live by faith is so much the harder work; yet it must be done, otherwise thine other duties profit thee nothing.
For if a man gives way to unbelief, though he is most frequent in all other duties besides, so often as he worshipped God in these, he yet saith, God is a liar in the other, even because he hath not believed: ‘He that believeth not God, hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God had given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son (1 John 5:10,11). So then, when thou gives way to unbelief; when thou dost not venture the salvation of thy soul upon the justifying life that is in Christ—that is, in his blood, &c.,—at once, thou gives the lie to the whole testament of God; yea, thou tramples upon the promise of grace, and countess this precious blood an unholy and unworthy thing (Heb 10:29). Now how thou doing thus, the Lord should accept of thy other duties, of prayer, alms, thanksgiving, self-denial, or any other, will be hard for thee to prove.
In the meantime, remember that faith pleased God; without faith, it is impossible to please him. Remember also, that for this cause it was that the offering of Cain was not accepted: ‘By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain’; for by faith Abel first justified the promise of the Messiah, by whom a conquest should be obtained over the devil, and all the combination of hell against us: then he honored Christ by believing that he was able to save him; and in token that he believed these things indeed, he presented the Lord with the firstlings of his flock, as a remembrance before God that he believed in his Christ (Heb 11:4). And therefore it is said, ‘By faith he offered’; by which means the offering was accepted of God; for no man’s offering can be accepted with God but his that stands righteous before him first. But unbelief holds men under their guilt, because they have not believed in Christ, and by that means put on his righteousness. Again; he that believeth not, hath made invalid—what in him lies—the promise of God and merits of Christ, of whom the Father hath spoken so worthily; therefore what duties or acts of obedience soever he performed, God by no means can be pleased with him.
By this, you see the miserable state of the people with no faith—’ Whatever they do, they sin’; if they break the law, they sin; if they endeavor to keep it, they sin. They sin, I say, upon a double account: first, because they do it but imperfectly; and, secondly, because they yet stay upon that, resisting that which is perfect, even that which God hath appointed. It mattered not, as to justification from the curse, therefore; men wanting faith, whether they be civil or profane, they are such as stand accursed of the law, because they have not believed, and because they have given the lie to the truth, and to the God of truth. Let all men, therefore, that would please God make conscience of believing; on pain, I say, of displeasing him; on pain of being, with Cain, rejected, and on pain of being damned in hell. ‘He that believes not shall be damned’ (Mark 16:16).
Faith is the very quintessence of all gospel obedience, it is that which must go before other duties and that which also must accompany whatever I do in the worship of God if it is accepted of him. Here you may see a reason why the force and power of hell is so bent against believing. Satan hated all the parts of our Christian obedience, but the best and chiefs most. And hence the apostle saith to the Thessalonians, that he sent to know their faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted them, and so his labor had been in vain (1 Thess 3:5). Indeed, where faith is wanting, or hath been destroyed, all the labor is in vain, nothing can profit any man, neither as to peace with God, nor the acceptance of any religious duty; and this, I say, Satan knows, which makes him so bend his force against us.
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