The sound believer. A treatise of evangelical conversion. Discovering the work of Christ's spirit,…

I know 'tis a Question of some Difficulty among some, viz. Whether an absolute Testimony of actual Favour and Justification be not the first Ground of Faith? They that make Faith to be an absolute Assurance of God's Favour, must of Necessity maintain this Assertion, and then these Things will follow.

1. That a Christian must be justified before he believe; for the Cause of Faith must go before Faith. This Proposition, Thou art justified, reconciled, is according to this Assertion the Cause of Faith: for no Proposition can therefore be true, because we are persuaded that it is true, but it must first be true, before I am persuaded of it; the Wall is not white because my Eyes see it so, but it must first be white, then I see it so. Now to make actual Justification before Faith, is cross to the whole Current of Scripture. We believe that we might be justified, Gal. 2.16. we are not justified that we might believe. We pass from Death to Life by Faith, John 5.24. We are not in a State of Life before Faith. When the Lord Jesus saw their Faith, Matth. 9.2. he then said, Be of good Comfort, thy Sins are forgiven thee. The Word saith, He that believeth not is condemned already, John 3.18. and therefore (unless the Spirit's Witness be cross to the Word) it doth not say to one that believeth not, that he is absolved already. To be justified by Faith, and to be justified by Christ's Righteousness, is all one in the Scriptures Phrase and Meaning, Gal. 2.16, 17. And therefore we may as well say that we are justified before and without Christ, as before and without Faith. And indeed this Doctrine of being justified by Faith, and by this Means to have Remission of Sins, the Apostle Peter affirms to be the Doctrine of all the Prophets,