Discourses, or, Sermons on several Scriptures

Objection. But, may some say, Is not this again to establish the antiquated Covenant of Works; Do this, and live? And doth not this abolish the Law of Faith, He that believeth shall be saved? Is it ⟨p. 76⟩not the Office of Faith alone to convey unto us a Right and Title unto Eternal Life?

Answer. I answer, No, it doth no prejudice unto Faith; for we still affirm, that our original and fundamental Right to Heaven is grounded, not upon our Obedience, but Christ's; not upon our Works, but upon his; his Merits and Purchase, which, through Faith, are imparted and imputed to us. Yet give me leave to say, that I think the Notion of Justifying and Saving Faith is very much, if not generally mistaken by us: And as the Soul is the most noble, and most vital Principle of Man, and yet is most unknown to him what it is, and how it operates; so Faith, which is the vital Principle of Christians, and by which the Just are said to live, is yet most unknown, both as to its Nature and Operations, unto the ⟨p. 77⟩Generality of them: Some place it in Assurance, some in Affiance and Recumbence; some in one Act of Faith, and some in another; which are either the Effects of Faith as true, or the Degrees of it as strong, rather than the proper and adequate Nature and Essence of it; and then they mightily puzzle themselves how to accord and reconcile Faith and Obedience in carrying on the great Work of our Salvation, which yet were never at a variance about it, but only in their mistaken Hypothesis: For what is Faith, but an Assent to a Testimony? The very force and import of the Word can carry no other Sense: And he that saith he believes, must needs mean he believes some Record or Testimony; or else he speaks that which neither himself, nor any other can understand. Consequently therefore a Divine Faith must be an Assent ⟨p. 78⟩to a Divine Testimony; that is, to the Word of God contained in the Holy Scriptures. But now if this Faith rest only in a bare and naked Assent to the Truth of Divine Revelation, it is but Historical and Dogmatical; which, though it be a Divine Faith in respect of the Objects believed, yet is it but Humane and Natural in respect of its Principle and Motives. But when this Assent to the Truths of the Scripture is joined with proportionable Affections to those Truths, and doth excite us to Actions conformable to the Discoveries of the Divine Will, there this Faith is Justifying and Saving. And certainly this is not so very distant from Obedience, as to be thought hardly reconcilable with it.