CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

Several particulars have been given in to the clearing of the nature of justifying Faith; The last we were upon, was to inform what goeth to the being of it, and two Ingredients have been dispatched, viz. Knowledge and assent; Proceed we therefore to a third thing, and that is,

SEveral particulars have been given in to the clearing of the nature of justifying Faith; The last we were upon, was to inform what goeth to the being of it, and two Ingredients have been dispatched, viz. Knowledge and assent; Proceed we therefore to a third thing, and that is,

3. A deep sense and feeling of the burden of sin, with some sorrow and humiliation thereupon; The Law must work in the discovery of the disease, before the Gospel doth in manifestation of the Remedy; There must be the pain and smart of a sting felt ere there be any earnest beholding of the brazen Serpent; Our Saviour said, The sick needed the Physician; When Paul by the light of the Law found himself out of measure sinful, then he began to seek after the unsearchable Riches of Gods grace, Come unto me all ye that are heavy loaden, and I will ease you, saith Christ, Mat. 11.28. Faith, that is the easing and reposing of the troubled Spirit: It is disputed whether Repentance go before Faith, and indeed there is an Evangelical Repentance whereby the heart is melted with grief for sin, because God is so gracious a Father in Christ, and this must necessarily follow Faith, but then there is a Legal sorrow for sin arising from Gods just hatred against it, which breeds great trouble and confusion in the soul before it hath laid hold on Christ, and this precedeth Faith; Of this our Saviour speaks, Mat. 21.32. Ye repented not that ye might believe; And so Peters hearers, Act. 2. were pricked at the heart, before they were directed into Evangelical Repentance and Faith; There is then a fence of our undone estate going before this justifying Faith, whereby a man finds himself utterly lost, all his desirable things perish, sin that was once so beloved by him, is as Tamar to Amnon, hated more then ever he loved it; Now he would throw it out of doors, the sight and memory of it is grievous to him, I press not such a measure or degree of sorrow, it worketh so much in all that there is a displacency and abhorrency in sin, as that which is the cause of all misery.