Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

Concerning justification by faith, I laboured to open it unto you the last day; three things may well be considered therein.

1. What that faith is whereby we are justified. 2. What that justification is, we have by faith. 3. What relation the one of these hath to the other.

Concerning the first of these I told you, that it was not every faith that justifieth, nor every kind of faith that a man can live by. There is a dead faith, and a man cannot live by a dead thing: And there is a living faith, and that is called a faith unfeigned. And though it be in Scripture called the faith, yet it is with some restriction; it is the faith of God's elect; and common to none besides. There is a faith also which is but temporary; that being touched with the sense of sin, and seeing there is no deliverance from the curse due to sin, but by Christ; and that there is no part to be had in Christ, but by renouncing all corruptions; the consideration of the desperateness of his case without Christ, makes him long after him; and since he cannot have Christ without leaving sin, he will resolve on that too; he will make towards Christ, and perhaps he comes to taste of the sweetness of Christ, and feels the power of the world to come; he forsakes sin, and thereby comes so near the true believer, that a man must as it were, cut a hair to divide between them. And this is a thing very necessary to be considered of.

Concerning the first of these I told you, that it was not every faith that justifieth, nor every kind of faith that a man can live by. There is a dead faith, and a man cannot live by a dead thing: And there is a living faith, and that is called a faith unfeigned. And though it be in Scripture called the faith, yet it is with some restriction; it is the faith of God's elect; and common to none besides. There is a faith also which is but temporary; that being touch'd with the sense of sin, and seeing there is no deliverance from the curse due to sin, but by Christ; and that there is no part to be had in Christ, but by renouncing all corruptions; the consideration of the desperateness of his case without Christ, makes him long after him; and since he cannot have Christ without leaving sin, he will resolve on that too; he will make towards Christ, and perhaps he comes to taste of the sweetness of Christ, and feels the power of the world to come; he forsakes sin, and thereby comes so near the true believer, that a man must as it were, cut a hair to divide between them. And this is a thing very necessary to be considered of.