The Pre-Eminence Of Faith Above Other Graces

The exhortation—‘Above all, taking the shield of faith’  (Eph. 6:16).

           Of all graces faith is the chief, and is chiefly to be laboured for.  There is a precedency or pre-eminence peculiar to this above all other.  It is among graces, as the sun is among the planets, or as Solomon’s ‘virtuous woman among the daughters,’ Prov. 31:29.  Though every grace had done virtuously, yet thou, O faith, excellest them all.  The apostle indeed give the precedency to love, and sets faith on the lower hand.  ‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity,’  I Cor. 13:13.  Yet, you may observe, that this prelation of it before faith hath a particular respect to the saints’s blissful state in heaven, where love remains, and faith ceaseth.  In that regard love indeed is the greater, because it is the end of our faith.  We apprehend by faith that we may enjoy by love.  But, if we consider the Christian’s present state, while militant on earth, in this respect love must give place to faith.  It is true, love is the grace that shall triumph in heaven.  But it is faith, not love, which is the conquering grace on earth.  ‘This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith,’ I John 5:4.  Love indeed hath its place in the battle, and doth excellent service, but is under faith its leader.  ‘Faith which worketh by love,’ Gal. 5:6.  Even as the captain fighteth by his soldiers whom he leads on, so faith works by love which it excites.  Love, it is true, is the grace that at last possesseth the inheritance, but it is faith that gives the Christian right unto it.  Without this he should never have enjoyed it, John 1:12.  In a word, it is love that unites God and glorified saints together in heaven; but it was faith that first united them to Christ while they were on earth—‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,’ Eph. 3:17. And if Christ had dwelt in them by faith on earth, they should never have dwelt with God in heaven.

The Import of The Expression ABOVE ALL

  

Fourth Inquiry. What doth this , ‘above all,’ import?

           There is variety among interpreters about it.  Jerome reads it, in omnibus, sumentes scutum fidei —in all things taking the shield of faith, i.e. in all duties, enterprises, temptations, or afflictions—in whatever you are called to do or suffer, take faith. Indeed, faith to the Christian is like fire to the chem­ist; nothing can be done without it christianly.  ‘But without faith it is impossible to please God,’ Heb. 11:6.  And how can the Christian please himself in that wherein he doth not please his God?  Others read it, ‘Over all take the shield of faith,’ i.e. take it over all your graces, as that which will cover them.  All other graces have their safety from faith; they lie secure under the shadow of faith, as an army lies safe under the protection and command of a strong castle planted round with cannon.  But we shall follow our translation, as being most comprehensive, and that which will take these within its compass.  ‘Above all, take,’ &c., that is, among all the pieces of armour which you are to provide and wear for your defence, let this have the pre-eminence of your care to get; and having got, to keep it.  Now, that the apostle meant to give a preeminency to faith above the other graces appears,

           First. By the piece of armour he compares it to —the shield.  This, of old, was prized above all other pieces by soldiers.  They counted it greater shame to lose their shield, than to lose the field, and therefore when under the very foot of their enemy, they would not part with it, but esteemed it an honour to die with their shield in their hand.  It was the charge that one laid upon her son, going into the wars, when she gave him a shield, ‘that he should either bring his shield home with him, or be brought home upon his shield.’  She had rather see him dead with it, than come home alive without it.

           Second. By the noble effect which is here ascribed to faith—‘by which ye shall quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.’  The other pieces are nakedly commended, ‘take the girdle of truth, breast-plate of righteousness,’ and so the rest; but there is nothing singly ascribed to any of them, what they can do, yet, when he speaks of faith, he ascribes the whole victory to it.  This quencheth ‘all the fiery darts of the wicked.’  And why thus?  Are the other graces of no use, and doth faith do all?  What need then the Christian load himself with more than this one piece? I answer, every piece hath its necessary use in the Christian's warfare: not any one part of the whole suit can be spared in the day of battle.  But the reason, I humbly conceive, why no particular effect is annexed severally to each of these, but all ascribed to faith, is, to let us know that all these graces—their efficacy and our benefit from them—is in conjunction with faith, and the influence they receive from faith; so that this is plainly the design of the Spirit of God to give faith the precedency in our care above the rest.  Only, take heed that you do not fancy any indifferency or negligence to be allowed you in your endeavours after the other graces, because you are more strongly provoked and excited up to the getting and keeping this.  The apostle would intend your care here, but not remit it there.  Cannot we bid a soldier above all parts of his body to beware of a wound at his heart, but he must needs think presently he need take no care to guard his head?  Truly, such a one would deserve a cracked crown to cure him of his folly.  The word thus op ened, we shall content ourselves with one general observation from them; and it is this.

WHY Faith is Compared To a SHIELD

Third Inquiry. Why is faith compared to a shield?

           It is so, because of a double resemblance that is between this grace and that piece of armour.

           First Resemblance.  This shield is not for the de­fence of any particular part of the body—as almost all the other pieces are—the helmet fitted for the head, the plate designed for the breast, and so others having their several parts which they are fastened to—but is intended for the defence of the whole body.  It was used therefore to be made very large, for its broadness called  of {from}", a gate or door, because so long and large as in a manner to cover the whole body.  To this that place alludes, ‘For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield,’ Ps. 5:12.  And if the shield were not large enough at once to cover every part, yet, being a movable piece of armour, the skilful soldier might turn it this way or that way, to latch the blow or arrow from lighting on any part they were directed to.  And this indeed doth excellently well set forth the universal use that faith is of to the Christian. It defends the whole man; every part of the Christian by it preserved.  Sometimes the temptation is levelled at the head.  Satan, he will be disputing against this truth and that, to make the Christian, if he can, call them into question, merely because his reason and understanding cannot comprehend them; and he pre­vails with some that do not think themselves the un­wisest in the world, upon this very account, to blot the deity of Christ, with other mysterious truths of the gospel, quite out of their creed.  Now faith inter­poseth between the Christian and this arrow.  It comes into the relief of the Christian’s weak under­standing as seasonably as Zeruiah did to David, when the giant Ishbi-benob thought to have slain him.  I will trust the word of God, saith the believer, rather than my own purblind reason.  ‘Abraham not being weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead,’ Rom. 4:19.  If sense should have had the hearing of that business, yea, if that holy man had put it to a reference between sense and reason also, what resolution his thoughts should come to concerning this strange message that was brought him, he would have been in danger of calling the truth of it in question, though God himself was the messenger; but faith brought him honourably off.

           Again, Is it conscience that the tempter assaults? —and it is not seldom that he is shooting his fiery darts of horror and terror at his mark.  Faith receives the shock, and saves the creature harmless: ‘I had fainted, unless I had believed,’ saith David, Ps. 27:13. He means when false witnesses rose up against him, and such as breathed out cruelty, as appears, ver. 12.  Faith was his best fence against man's charge; and so it is against Satan’s and conscience's also.  Never was a man in a sadder condition than the poor jailer, Acts 16.  Much ado he had to keep his own hands from offering violence to himself.  Who that had seen him fall trembling at the feet of Paul and Silas, with that sad question in his mouth, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ ver. 30, could have thought this deep wound that was now given his conscience, would so soon have been closed and cured as we find it, ver. 34.  The earthquake of horror that did so dreadfully shake his conscience is gone, and his trembling turned into rejoicing.  Now mark what made this blessed calm. ‘Believe,’ saith Paul, ‘on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,’ ver. 31; and ver. 34, it is said, he ‘rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.’  It is faith stills the storm which sin had raised—faith that changed his doleful note into joy and gladness.  Hap­py man he was, that had such skilful chirurgeons so near him, who could direct him the nearest way to a cure.

           Again, Is it the will that the temptation is laid to catch?  Some commands of God cannot be obeyed without much self-denial, because they cross us in that which our own wills are carried forth very strong­ly to desire; so that we must deny our will before we can do the will of God.  Now a temptation comes very forcible, when it runs with the tide of our own wills. ‘What,’ saith Satan, ‘wilt thou serve a God that thus thwarts thee in everything?’  If thou lovest anything more than another, presently he must have that from thee.  No lamb in all the flock will serve for a sacrifice, but Isaac, Abraham’s only child, he must be offered up.  No place will content God, that Abraham should serve him in, but where he must live in ban­ishment from his dear relations and acquaintance. ‘Wilt thou,’ saith Satan, ‘yield to such hard terms as these?’  Now faith is the grace that doth the soul ad­mirable service at such a pinch as this.  It is able to appease the tumult which such a temptation may raise in the soul, and dismiss the rout of all mutinous thoughts, yea, to keep the King of heaven's peace so sweetly in the Christian’s bosom, that such a temptation, if it comes, shall find few or none to declare for it, ‘By faith,’ it saith, ‘Abraham obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither,’ Heb. 11:8.  And we do not read of one fond look that his heart cast back upon his dear native country, as he went from it, so well pleased had faith made him with his journey.  It was hard work for Moses to strip himself of the magistrate’s robes, and put his hands on his servants head; hard to leave another to enter upon his labours, and reap the honour of lodging the Israelites' colours in Canaan, after it had cost him so many a weary step to bring them within sight of it.  Yet, faith made him willing; he saw better robes, that he should put on in heaven, than those he was called on to put off on earth.  The lowest place in glory is, beyond all compare, greater preferment than the highest place of honour here below; to stand before the throne there, and minister to God in immediate service, than to sit in a throne on earth and have all the world waiting at his foot. 

           Second Resemblance.  The shield doth not only defend the whole body, but is a defence of the soldier's armour also.  It keeps the arrow from the hel­met as well as head, from the breast and breast-plate also.  Thus faith it is armour upon armour, a grace that preserves all the other graces.  But of this more hereafter.

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  (1.) He must inquire for a promise to bear his faith out, and warrant him to expect such a mercy at God’s hand.

           (2.) Again, when he hath found a promise, and observed the terms well on which it runs, the Chris­tian is not to stay for any further encouragement, but upon the credit of the naked promise to set his faith on work.

           (a) He is to inquire out a promise, and observe well the terms on which it runs.  Indeed upon the point it comes all to one; to believe without a promise, or to believe on a promise, but not observe the terms of it. Both are presumptuous, and speed alike. A prince hath as much reason to be angry with him that doth not keep close to his commission, as with another that acts without any commission. O how little considered is this by many who make bold of God’s arm to lean on for pardon and salvation, but never think that the promise, which presents Christ to leaned on as a Saviour, presents him at the same time to be chosen as a Lord and Prince!  Such were the rebellious Israelites, who durst make God and his promise a leaning-stock for their foul elbows to rest on.  ‘They call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The Lord of hosts is his name,’ Isa. 48:2; but they were more bold than welcome.  God rejected their confidence and loathed their sauciness.  Though a prince would not disdain to let a poor wounded man, faint with bleeding, and unable to go alone, upon his humble request, make use of his arm, rather than he should perish in the streets; yet he would, with indignation, reject the same motion from a filthy drunkard that is be­smeared with his vomit, if he should desire leave to lean on him because he cannot go alone.  I am sure, how welcome soever the poor humble soul—that lies bleeding for his sins at the very mouth of hell in his own thoughts—is to God when he comes upon the encouragement of the promise to lean on Christ, yet the profane wretch that emboldens himself to come to Christ, shall be kicked away with infinite disdain and abhorrency by a holy God for abusing his   promise.

           (b) When a poor sinner hath found a promise, and observes the terms with a heart willing to embrace them, now he is to put forth an act of faith upon the credit of the naked promise, without staying for any other encouragement elsewhere.  Faith is a right pilgrim-grace; it travels with us to heaven, and when it sees us safe got within our Father’s doors —heaven I mean—it takes leave of us.  Now, the promise is this pilgrim’s staff with which it sets forth, though, like Jacob on his way to Padan-aram, it hath nothing else with it.  ‘Remember the word unto thy servant,’ saith David, ‘upon which thou hast caused me to hope,’ Ps. 119:49.  The word of promise was all he had to show, and he counts that enough to set his faith on work.  But alas! some make comfort the ground of faith, and experience their warrant to believe.  They will believe when God manifests him­self to them, and sends in some sensible demonstra­tion of his love to their souls; but, till this be done, the promise hath little authority to silence their unbe­lieving cavils, and quiet their misgiving hearts into a waiting on God for the performance of what there is spoken from God's own mouth.  It is like old Jacob, who gave no credit to his children when they told him Joseph was yet alive and governor over all the land of Egypt.  This news was too good and great to enter into his belief, who had given him {up} for dead {for} so long; it is said, ‘his heart fainted, for he believed them not,’ Gen. 45:26.  But when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him thither, then it is said, ‘the spirit of Jacob revived,’ ver. 27. Truly thus, though the promise tells the poor humbled sinner Christ is alive, governor of heaven itself, with all power there and on earth put into his hand, that he may give eternal life unto all that believe on him, and he be therefore exhorted to rest upon Christ in the promise, yet his heart faints and believes not. It is the wagons he would fain see—some sensible expressions of God’s love that he listens after—if he did but know that he was an elect person, or were one that God did love, then he would believe.  But God hath little reason to thank him in the meantime for suspending his faith till these come.  This is, as I may so say, to believe for spiritual loves, and is rather sense than faith.

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3. The act of faith upon this object, and that is resting on Christ crucified for pardon and life.I know there are many acts of the soul antecedent to this, without which the creature can never truly exer­cise this.  As knowledge, especially of God and Christ, upon whose authority and testimony it relies: ‘I know whom I have believed,’ II Tim. 1:12.  None will readily trust a stranger that he is wholly unacquainted with. Abraham indeed went he knew not whither, but he did not go with he knew not whom.  The greatest thing God laboured to instruct Abraham in, and satisfy him with, was—

           (1.) The knowledge of his own glorious self —who he was—that he might take his word and rely on it, how harsh and improbable, soever it might sound in sense or reason’s ear, ‘I am Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.’

           (2.) Assent to the truth of the word of God.  If this foundation-stone be not laid, faith's building cannot go on.  Who will trust him that he dares not think speaks true?

           (3.) A sense of our own vileness and emptiness. By the one he means us see our demerit, what we deserve, hell and damnation; by the other, our own impotency, how little we can contribute—yea, just nothing, to our own reconciliation.  I join them together, because the one ariseth out of the other. Sense of this emptiness comes from the deep apprehensions a soul hath of the other’s fulness in him. You never knew a man full of self-confidence and self-abasement together.  The con­science cannot abound with the sense of sin and the heart with self-conceit at the same time.  ‘When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died,’ Rom. 7:9—that is, when the commandment came, in the accusations of it, to his conscience, sin, like a sleepy lion had lain still, and he secure and confident by it, when that began to roar in his conscience, then he died—that is, his vain-confidence of himself gave up the ghost.  Both these are necessary to faith—sense of sin, like the smart of a wound, to make the creature think of a plaster to cure it; and sense of emptiness and insufficiency in himself or any creature to do the cure necessary to make him go out to Christ for cure.  We do not go abroad to beg what we have of our own within doors. These, with some other, are necessary to faith.  But the receiving of Christ, and resting on Christ, is that act of faith to which justification is promised.  ‘He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God,’ John 3:18.  Now every one that assents to the truth of what the Scripture saith of Christ, doth not believe on Christ.  No; This believing on Christ im­plies an union of the soul to Christ and fiduciary re­cumbency on Christ.  Therefore we are bid to take hold of Christ, Isa. 27:5, who is there called God’s ‘strength,’ as elsewhere his arm—‘that we may make peace with God, and we shall make peace with him.’ It is not the sight of a man's arm stretched out to a man in the water will save him from drowning, but the taking hold of it.  Christ is a stone.  Faith builds upon Christ for salvation.  And how? but by laying its whole weight and expectation of mercy on him.  What Paul, II Tim. 1:12, calls ‘believing’ in the former part of the verse, he calls in the latter part a ‘committing to him to be kept against that day.’

           (4.) The fourth and last branch in the description, is the warrant and security that faith goes upon in this act.  And this it takes from the promise.  In­deed, there is no way how God can be conceived to contract a debt to his creature but by promise.  There are ways for men to become debtors one to another, though never any promise passed from them. The fa­ther is a debtor to his child, and owes him love, provi­sion, and nurture.  The child is a debtor to his parent, and owes him honour and obedience, though neither of them promised this to each other.  Much more doth the creature stand deep in God’s debt-book, and owes himself with all he hath to God his Maker, though he hath not the grace voluntarily to make these over to God by promise and covenant.  But the great God is so absolute a Sovereign, that none can make a law to bind him but himself.  Till he be pleased to pass an act of grace, of his own good-will, to give this or do that good thing to and for his poor creatures, no claim can be laid to the least mercy at his hands.  There are two things therefore that are greatly to be heeded by the soul that would believe.

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Second. I shall answer affirmatively, what justi­fying faith is, and in the description of it I shall con­sider it solely as justifying.  And so take it in these few words—It is the act of the soul whereby it rests on Christ crucified for pardon and life, and that upon the warrant of the promise.  In the description observe,

1. The subject where faith is seated, not any single faculty, but the soul.  2. The object of faith as justifying—Christ crucified.  3. The act of faith upon this object, and that is resting on Christ crucified for pardon and life.  4. The warrant and security that faith goes upon in this act.
2. The subject where faith is seated,not any sin­gle faculty, but the soul.  Of this I have spoken some­thing before, and so pass on to the second point.
3. Here is the object of faith as justifying,and that is Christ crucified.  The whole truth of God is the object of justifying faith.  It trades with the whole word of God, and doth firmly assent unto it; but, in its justifying act, it singles out Christ crucified for its object.  (1.) The person of Christ is the object of faith as justifying.  (2.) Christ as crucified.

           (1.) The person of Christ.  Not any axiom or proposition in the word.  This is the object of assurance, not of faith.  Assurance saith ‘I believe my sins are pardoned through Christ.’  Faith’s language is, ‘I believe on Christ for the pardon of them.’  The word of God doth direct our faith to Christ, and terminates it upon him; called therefore, a ‘coming to Christ,’ Matt. 11:28, a ‘receiving of him,’ John 1:12, a ‘believing on him,’ John 17:20.  The promise is but the dish in which Christ, the true food of the soul, is served up; and, if faith’s hand be on the promise, it is but as one that draws the dish to him, that he may come at the dainties in it.  The promise is the marriage-ring on the hand of faith.  Now we are not married to the ring, but with it unto Christ.  ‘All the promises,’ saith the apostle, ‘are yea and amen in him.’  They have their excellency from him, and efficacy in him—I mean in a soul’s union to him.  To run away with a promise, and not to close with Christ, and by faith become one in him, is as if a man should rend a branch from a tree, and lay it up in his chest, expecting it to bear fruit there.  Promises are dead branches severed from Christ.  But when a soul by faith becomes united to Christ, then he partakes of all his fatness; not a promise but yields sweetness to it.

           (2.) As Christ is the primary object of faith, so Christ as crucified.  Not Christ in his personal ex­cellencies—so he is the object rather of our love than faith—but as bleeding, and that to death, under the hand of divine justice for to make an atonement by God’s own appointment for the sins of the world.  As the handmaid’s eye is to her mistress’s hand for direc­tion, so faith’s eye is on God revealing himself in his word; which way God by it points the soul, thither it goes.  Now there faith finds God, intending to save poor sinners, pitched on Christ, and Christ alone, for the transacting and effecting of it, and him whom God chooseth to trust with the work—him and him alone—will faith choose to lay the burden of her confidence on.

           Again, faith observes how Christ performed this great work, and accordingly how the promise holds him forth to be applied for pardon and salvation. Now faith finds that then Christ made the full payment to the jus­tice of God for sin, when he poured out his blood to death upon the cross.  All the prece­daneous acts of his humiliation were but preparatory to this.  He was born to die; he was sent into the world as a lamb bound with the bonds of an irreversible decree for a sacrifice.  Christ himself when he came into the world understood this to be the errand he was sent on, Heb. 10:5.  ‘Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me;’ i.e. to be an expiatory sacrifice.  Without this, all he had done would have been labour undone. No redemption but by his blood, ‘In whom we have re­demption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,’ Eph. 1:7.  No church without his blood, ‘The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood,’ Acts 20:28.  E latere Christi morientis exstitit ecclesia— the church is taken out of dying Jesus’ side, as Eve out of sleeping Adam’s.  Christ did not redeem and save poor souls by sitting in majesty on his heavenly throne, but by hanging on the shameful cross, under the tormenting hand of man’s fury and God’s just wrath.  And therefore the poor soul, that would have pardon of sin, is directed to place his faith not only on Christ, but on bleeding Christ, Rom. 3:25: ‘Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.’

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2. Justifying faith is not assurance.  If it were, St. John might have spared his pains, who wrote to them that ‘believed on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life,’ I John 5:13.  They might then have said ‘We do this already.  What else is our faith, but a believing that we are such as through Christ are pardoned, and shall through him be saved?’ But this cannot be so.  If faith were assurance, then a man’s sins would be pardoned before he believes, for he must necessarily be pardoned before he can know he is pardoned.  The candle must be lighted before I can see it is lighted.  The child must be born before I can be assured it is born.  The object must be before the act.  Assurance rather is the fruit of faith.  It is in faith as the flower is in the root.  Faith, in time, after much communion with God, ac­quaintance with the word, and experience of his deal­ings with the soul, may flourish into assurance.  But, as the root truly lives before the flower appears, and continues when that hath shed its beautiful leaves, and gone again; so doth true justifying faith live before assurance comes, and after it disappears.  As­surance is, as it were, the cream of faith.  Now you know there is milk before there is cream, this riseth not but after some time standing, and there remains milk after it is fleted off.  How many, alas! of the precious saints of God must we shut out from being believers, if there is no faith but what amounts to assurance?  We must needs offend against the generation of God’s children, among whom some are babes, not yet come to the use of their reflex act of faith, so as to own the graces of God in them to be true, upon the review that they take of their own actings.  And, must not the child be allowed to be a child, till he can speak for himself, and say he is so? 

Others there are in Christ's family, who are of higher stature and great­er experience in the ways of God, yet have lost those apprehensions of pardoning mercy, which once they were, through the goodness of God, able to have shown—shall we say their faith went away in the de­parture of their assurance?  How oft then in a year may a believer be no believer? even as oft as God withdraws and leaves the creature in the dark.  Assur­ance is like the sun-flower, which opens with the day and shuts with the night.  It follows the motion of God’s face.  If that looks smilingly on the soul, it lives; if that frowns or hides itself, it dies.  But faith is a plant that can grow in the shade, a grace that can find the way to heaven in a dark night.  It can ‘walk in darkness,’ and yet ‘trust in the name of the Lord,’ Isa. 50:10.  In a word, by making the essence of faith to lie in assurance, we should not only offend against the generation of God's children, but against the God and Father of these children; for at one clap we turn the greater number of those children he hath here on earth out of doors.  Yes, we are cruel to those he is most tender of, and make sad the hearts of those that he would have chiefly comforted.  Indeed if this were true, a great part of gospel provision laid up in the promises is of little use.  We read of promises to those that mourn, ‘they shall be comforted,’ to the contrite, ‘they shall be revived,’ to him that ‘walks in darkness,’ and the like.  These belong to believers, and none else.  Surely then there are some believers that are in the dark, under the hatches of sorrow, wounded and broken with their sins, and temptation for them.  But they are not such as are assured of the love of God; their water is turned into joy, their night into light, their sighs and sobs into joy and praise.

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Second Inquiry.  What is this justifying faith as to its nature?

           I shall answer this, First. Negatively.  Second. Af­firmatively.

           First. Negatively, in two particulars.

1. Justifying faith is not a naked assent to the truths of the gospel.This justifying faith doth give; but this doth not make it justifying faith.  A dogmat­ical faith, or historical, is comprehended in justifying faith.  But dogmatical faith doth not infer justifying faith.  Justifying faith cannot be without a dogmatical; it implies it, as the rational soul in man doth the sen­sitive.  But, the dogmatical may be without the justi­fying, as the sensitive soul in the beast without the ra­tional.  Judas knew the Scriptures, and without doubt did assent to the truth of them, when he was so zeal­ous a preacher of the gospel; but he never had so much as one dram of jus­tifying faith in his soul.  ‘But there are some of you that believe not.  For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him,’ John 6:64.  Yea, Ju­das’ master, the devil himself—one far enough, I sup­pose, from justifying faith—yet he assents to the truth of the word.  He goes against his conscience who denies them.  When he tempted Christ he did not dispute against the Scripture, but from the Scripture, drawing his arrows out of this quiver, Matt. 4:6. And at another time, he makes as full a confession of Christ, for the matter, as Peter himself did, Matt. 8:29, compared with Matt. 16:17.  Assent to the truth of the word is but an act of the understanding, which reprobates and devils may exercise; but justifying faith is a compounded habit, and hath its seat both in the under­standing and will; and therefore [it is] called a ‘believing with the heart,’ Rom. 10:10; yea, a ‘believing with all the heart,’ Acts 8:37.  ‘Philip said, If thou be­lievest with all thine heart, thou mayest.’  It takes all the powers of the soul.  There is a double object in the promise—one proper to the understanding, to move that; another proper to the will, to excite and work upon that.  As the promise is true, so it calls for an act of assent from the understanding; and as it is good as well as true, so it calls for an act of the will to embrace and receive it.  Therefore, he which only no­tionally knows the promise, and speculatively assents to the truth of it, without clinging to it, and embracing of it, doth not believe savingly, and can have no more benefit from the promise, than nourishment from the food he sees and acknowledgeth to be wholesome, but eats none of.

The Kind of Faith Here Meant

           First Inquiry.  What faith is it that here is commended?  This will soon be known, if we consider the use and end for which it is commended to the Christian, and that is to enable him to ‘quench all the fiery darts of the wicked;’ i.e. of the wicked one, the devil.  Now, look upon the several kinds of faith, and that among them must be the faith of this place which enables the creature to quench Satan’s fiery darts, yea, all his fiery darts.  Historical faith cannot do this, and therefore is not it.  This is so far from quenching Satan’s fiery darts, that the devil himself, that shoots them, hath this faith.  ‘The devils believe,’ James 2:19.  Temporary faith cannot do it.  This is so far from quenching Satan’s fiery darts, that itself is quenched by them.  It makes a goodly blaze of profession, and ‘endures for a while,’ Matt. 13:21, but soon disappears.  Miraculous faith, this falls as short as the former.  Judas’ miraculous faith, which he had with other of the apostles—for aught that we can read —enabling him to cast devils out of others, left himself possessed of the devil of covetousness, hypoc­risy, and treason; yea, a whole legion of lusts, that hurried him down the hill of despair into the bottomless pit of perdition.  There is only one kind of faith remains, which is it the apostle means in this place, and that is justifying faith.  

This indeed is the grace that makes him, whoever hath it, the devil’s match.  Satan hath not so much advantage of the Christian by the transcendency of his natural abilities, as he hath of Satan in this cause and this his weapon.  The apostle is confident to give the day to the Christian before the fight is fully over: ‘Ye have overcome the wicked one,’ I John 2:13, that is, ye are as sure to do it as if you were now mounted on your triumphant chariot in heaven.  The knight shall overcome the giant; the saint, Satan; and the same apostle tells us what gets him the day. ‘This is the victory that over­cometh the world, even our faith,’ I John 5:4.

APPLICATION of The Influences and Privileges of the Gospel Peace

  Use First. The preceding doctrine informs our judg­ments in two particulars.  1. What to judge of their patience in affliction that have no interest in the gospel’s peace.  2. What to think of their peace who, in affliction, have no patience at all.

1. What we are to judge of their patience in af­fliction who have no interest in the gospel’s peace. Some you shall see very still and quiet in affliction, yet mere strangers to this peace, ignorant of Christ the Peace-maker, walking in opposition to the terms God offers peace in the gospel upon, and yet very calm in affliction.  Certainly all is not right with this poor creature.  If he had any sense how it is with him, he would have little patience to see himself under the hand of God, and not know but it may leave him in hell before it hath done with him.  When I see one run over the stones and hard ways barefoot and not complain, I do not admire his patience, but pity the poor creature that hath benumbed his feet, and, as it were, soled them with a brawny, dead kind of flesh, so as to lose his feeling.  But, save your pity much more for those whose consciences are so benumbed and hearts petrified into a senseless stupidity, that they feel their misery no more than the stone doth the ma­son’s saw which cuts it asunder.  Of all men out of hell, none [is] more to be pitied than he that hangs over the mouth of it, and yet is fearless of his danger, while thus the poor wretch is incapable of all means for his good.  What good does physic put into a dead man’s mouth?  If he cannot be chased to some sense of his condition, all applications are in vain.  And if afflictions—which are the strongest physic—leave the creature senseless, there is little hope left that any other will work upon him.
2. What are we to think of their peace who, in affliction, have no patience at all—those that are great pretend­ers to gospel peace, yet cannot think with any patience of suffering from God or for God. Certainly, so far as the creature is acquainted with this peace, and hath the true sense of God's love in Christ lying warm at his heart, he cannot but find pro­portionably his heart stand ready to submit to any suffering that God lays out for him.  And therefore it behooves us well to try our peace and comfort.  If thou hast no heart to suffer for God, but choosest a sin to escape a cross, thy peace is false.  If thou hast but little patience under ordinary afflictions, to com­pose thy spirit from murmuring, and sustain thy heart from sinking, thy faith on the promise is weak.  ‘If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small,’ Prov. 24:10.

           Use Second. Let this doctrine stir thee up, Christian, to be very tender and chary of thy peace with God and thy own conscience.   Keep this peace clear and unbroken, and it will keep thy heart whole, when the whole world breaks about thee.  So long as this peace of God rules in your hearts, you are safe from fear or danger, though in a prison or at a stake. But if thou sufferest it to be wounded, then thy ene­mies will come upon thee as Simeon and Levi on the men of Shechem when sore, and be too hard for thee. O it is sad, friends—you will find it so—to go with sore and smarting consciences into a suffering condition.  A thorn in the foot will make any way uneasy to the traveller; and guilt in the conscience any condition uncomfortable to the Christian, but most of all a suffering one.  Now, if you will keep your peace unbroken, you must bestow some attendance on it, and set as it were a life-guard about it.  The choicest flowers need most looking to.  The richer the treasure the safer we lay it.  This peace is thy treasure; look well where thou layest it.  Two ways our Saviour tells us that worldly treasure, such as silver and gold is, may be lost—by thieves that break in and carry it away, and by rust that eats and corrupts it, Matt. 6:19.  There are two ways something like these, wherein the Christian may go by the loss in this his heavenly treasure of inward peace and comfort.

1. Presumptuous sins, these are the thieves that ‘break through and steal’ the saint’s comfort away.  When the Christian comes to look into his soul after such a bold act, and thinks to entertain himself, as formerly, with the comforts of his pardoned state, in­terest in Christ, and hopes of heaven through him, alas! he finds a sad change.  There is no promise that will give out its consolations to him—the cellar-door is locked, Christ withdrawn, and the keys carried away with him.  He may even cry out with a sad com­plaint, as Mary when she found not Christ’s body in the sepulchre, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.’  Thus the Christian may, with aching heart, bemoan his folly, ‘My pride, my uncleanness, my earthly-mindedness, they have taken away my treasure, robbed me of my comfort.  I could never have a comfortable sight of God’s face in any duty or promise since I fell into that foul sin.’  And therefore, Christian, have a care of such robbers of thy peace as this.  ‘The spirit of man’ is called ‘the candle of the Lord,’ Prov. 20:27. Hath God lighted thy candle, Christian—cheered thy spirit, I mean, with the sense of his love?  Take heed of presumptuous sins.  If such a thief be suffered in this thy candle, thy comfort will soon sweal out.  Hast thou fallen into the hands of any such presumptuous sins as have stolen thy peace from thee?  Send speedily thy hue and cry after them—I mean, take thy sad moan to God, renew thy repentance out of hand, and raise heaven upon them by a spirit of prayer.  This is no time to delay.  The farther thou lettest these sins go without repentance, the harder thou wilt find it to recover thy lost peace and joy out of their hands.  And for thy encouragement know, God is ready, upon thy serious and solemn return, to restore thee ‘the joy of his salvation,’ and do justice upon these enemies of thy soul for thee by his mortifying grace, if thou wilt prosecute the law upon them closely and vigorously, without relenting towards them, or being bribed with the pleasure or carnal advantage that they will not spare to offer, so their lives may be spared.
2. Again, as presumptuous sins are the ‘thieves’ that with a high hand rob the Christian of his comfort; so sloth and negligence are as the ‘rust,’ that in time will fret into his comfort and eat out the heart and strength of it.It is impossible that the Christian who is careless and secure in his walking, infrequent and negligent in his communion with God, should long be owner of much peace or comfort that is true. What if thou dost not pour water of presumptuous sins into the lap of thy joy to quench it?  It is enough if thou dost not pour oil of duty to feed and maintain it.  Thou art murderer to thy comfort by starving it, as well as by stabbing of it.