Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

SECT. V. Of believing in Jesus in that respect.

5. WE must believe in Jesus, as carrying on that great work of salvation for us in that Eternity. It is not enough to know, and consider, and desire, and hope, but we must believe. Now this is the nature and property of faith, to apply all these ancient and future doings and dealings of God to our selves, as if they were now present. Some difference there is betwixt hope and faith; as hope hath respect to that which the Word pomiseth, rem verbi; but faith respects the word it self, verbum rei; hope eyes chiefly the mercy and goodness of the promise, but faith eyes mainly the authority and truth of the promiser; hope looks upon its object as future, but faith only looks upon the object as present; both make a particular application to themselves, but hope in a waiting for it; and faith in a way of now enjoying it. Hence faith is called, the substance of things hoped for; it is the substance, or confidence of things hoped for,¹ as if we had them already in hand: faith gives the soul a present interest in God, in Christ, in all those glorious things in the Gospel of Christ; even in the things of eternal life. Faith is an appropriating, an applying, an uniting grace; it is a blessed thing to have the sight of God, there is much power in it; but to see God in his Glory as my God, to see all the Majesty, greatness, and goodness of God, as those things that my soul hath an interest in; to see how the eternal counsels of God wrought for me to make me happy, why this is of the nature of Faith; And herein lies the sweetness of faith, in that we believe not Christ only to be a Saviour, and righteousness, but my Saviour, and my righteousness; And therefore Luther affirmed that the sweetness of Christianity lay in pronouns; when a man can say, my Lord, and my God, and my Jesus. I live by the faith of the Son of God, ²