CHAPTER XIV. OF SAVING FAITH. SECTION I. The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls,1 is the word of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word :3 by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened.* 1 Heb. x. 39. 22 Cor. iv. 13. Eph. i. 17-19; ii. 8. 3 Rom. x. 14, 17. 41 Pet. ii. 2. Acts xx. 32. Rom. iv. 11. Luke xvii. 5. Rom. i. 16, 17. EXPOSITION. "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned," is the solemn announcement of the Saviour himself. The place thus assign ed to faith in the matter of salvation, shows that the subject of this chapter possesses the deepest interest. If a Saviour was necessary to the recovery of lost sinners, faith in that Saviour is no less necessary to the actual enjoyment of salvation. The vast importance of having scriptural views of the nature of saving faith must, therefore, be obvious. The present section teaches us, 1. That the subject of this faith are elect sinners. All whom God from eternity elected to everlasting life are in time brought to believe, to the saving of their souls. An apostle affirms: "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed;" and Christ himself declares: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.' Acts xiii. 48; John vi. 37. "The faith of God's elect" differs from every other sort of faith. Saving faith is supernatural, the act of a renewed soul, a living principle, which purifies the heart, works by love, and overcomes the world; it must, therefore, be widely different from a natural, a dead, or a common faith. It is denominated "precious faith," "faith unfeigned," "the faith of the operation of God;" and that faith to which the Scrip ture applies so many discriminating epithets must surely possess some quality peculiar to itself. Accordingly, we read in Scripture of many who believed, and yet did not possess saving faith. Simon the sorcerer believed; Agrippa believed; the hearers compared to the stony ground believed; and many believed in the name of Jesus, when they saw the miracles which he did; "but he did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men." It is manifest, then, that "they do not speak accurately, cautiously, or safely, who represent all sorts of faith to be of the same specific nature; because they may all agree in some bare simple act or persuasion of the mind. It must be a great and dangerous mistake to think that the belief of any ordinary fact upon human testimony, and every assent given by men, or even devils, to any doctrines or facts recorded in Scripture, is of the very same kind with that which is saving, although wanting so many things essential to the latter, of which so much is spoken, and which is so highly celebrated in the book of God.* 2. That this faith is wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Holy Spirit. Some unequivocally affirm, that every man has perfect power to believe the gospel, independently of the Spirit's influences; and others, who seem to recognize the necessity of divine influence, do yet deny that any direct special influence is either needed or bestowed; and therefore ultimately ascribe the existence of faith in one rather than another to the free-will of man. That man, in his fallen state," has lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation," we have formerly endeavoured to establish,† and shall only now appeal to the explicit testimony of Scripture. Faith is declared to be "the gift of God," to be of "the operation of God," and to require the * The late Professor Bruce's (of Whitburn) Evangelical Discourses, p. 106. There are some excellent remarks on this point in the "Miscellaneous Observations" of President Edwards. After adducing sevral arguments to prove "that saving faith differs from common faith in nature and essence, he says; "Beware how you entertain any such doctrine as that there is no essential difference between common and saving faith; and that both consist in a mere assent of the understanding to the doctrines of religion. That this doctrine is false, appears by what has been said; and if it be false, it must needs be exceed. ingly dangerous." A desire to simplify the notion of faith has led some late writers to represent saving faith as a simple belief of the truth, as no wise different, in respect of act, from the belief of any or dinary historical fact. Those who are disposed to adopt this view of faith, would do well to weigh the arguments of the acute Edwards. + See pages 137, 138. exertion of mighty power, like that which wrought in Christ when God raised him from the dead. Eph. i. 19; ii. 8; Col. ii. 12. The Holy Ghost is called "the Spirit of faith," (2 Cor. iv. 13); and faith is mentioned among "the fruits of the Spirit," (Gal. v. 22); because the production of faith in the hearts of the elect peculiarly belongs to him, as the applier of the redemption purchased by Christ. 3. That faith is ordinarily wrought in the hearts of the elect by the ministry of the word. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Rom. x. 17. Some allow of no other influence in this matter but the outward means. They explain away the plain import of those passages of Scripture which ascribe the production of faith to an immediate divine influence, as if no more were intended than that God furnishes men with the truth and its evidence. According to their interpretation, that emphatic declaration of Christ, "No man can come to me except the Father draw him," simply means, that the Father gives them the Scriptures. This is to substitute the means in the place of the efficient agent; and if the work is effected simply by the external means, there can be no propriety in speaking of the Holy Spirit as having anything to do in the production of faith. But our Confession clearly distinguishes between the work of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the word. There is a distinct and immediate influence of the Spirit on the heart; but the Spirit usually works by means, and the word read or preached is the divinely appointed means by which he usually communicates his influence. Lydia, in common with others, heard the word preached by Paul; but "the Lord opened her heart." The apostle clearly distinguishes between the gospel and the power which renders it successful: "Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost." 1 Thess. i. 5. SECTION II. By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein;5 and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and for that which is John iv. 42. 1 Thess. fi. 13. 1 John phn v.10. Acts xxiv. 14. • Rom. xvi. 26. to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.9 Heb. xi. 13. 1 Tim. iv. 8. John i. 12. Acts xvi, 31. Gal. ii. 20. Acts xv. 11. EXPOSITION. 1. The general object of divine faith is the whole word of God. As faith, in general, is an assent to truth upon testimony, so divine faith is an assent to divine truth upon divine testimony. Saving faith, therefore, includes an assent of the heart to all the truths revealed in the word of God, whether they relate to the law or to the gospel; and that, not upon the testimony of any man or church, nor because they appear agreeable to the dictates of natural reason, but on the ground of the truth and authority of God himself, speaking in the Scriptures, and evidencing themselves, by their own distinguishing light and power, to the mind.* 2. The special and personal object of saving faith is the Lord Jesus Christ. To know Christ, and God as manifested in him, is comprehensive of all saving knowledge, a term by which faith is sometimes expressed. John xvii. 3. Hence, this faith is called "the faith of Jesus Christ," and the scope of the apostle's doctrine is thus described: "Testifying both to the Jews and the Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." "Thus faith consists in believing the testimony of God concerning his Son, and the life that is in him for men. It respects him in his person and whole character, according to the revelation made of him, and according to the measure of knowledge a person has of him as thus revealed, especially as now manifested, and more clearly exhibited, and freely offered in the gospel. It views him in his supreme Deity as 'Immanuel, God with us;' as vested with all saving offices, so as to bear, in the highest sense, the name Jesus or Saviour, Lord or King, the great High Priest, Messias, or the Christ; and as exercising all his offices for the benefit of mankind sinners, with whom he entered into near affinity, by the assumption of their nature, that he might be capable of acting the part of * Owen's Treatise on the Reason of Faith, and Halyburton's Essay on Faith. a surety in obeying, dying, meriting, and mediating for them."* It will not do to limit the object of saving faith to any one doctrinal proposition, such as, that Jesus is the Son of God; or, that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh; or, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. This, at the utmost, would only be giving credit to a certain doctrine; but saving faith is a believing on the person of Christ, or an appropriating of Christ himself, with all the benefits and blessings included in him.† 3. The principal acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ. Romanists make faith to be nothing more than "a bare naked assent to the truth revealed in the word." This notion was strenuously opposed by our Reformers, and is renounced in the National Covenant of Scotland, under the name of a "general and doubtsome faith;" yet, many Protestants, in modern times, represent saving faith as nothing more than a simple assent to the doctrinal truths recorded in Scripture, and as exclusively an act of the understanding. But, although saving faith gives full credit to the whole word of God, and particularly to the testimony of God concerning his Son Jesus Christ, as has been already stated, yet, its principal acts are "accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ." True faith is the belief of a testimony; but it must correspond to the nature of the testimony believed. Were the gospel a mere statement of speculative truths, or a record of facts in which we have no personal interest, then, a simple assent of the mind to these truths, the mere crediting of these facts, would constitute the faith of the gospel. But the gospel is not a mere statement of historical facts, or of abstract doctrines respecting the Saviour; it contains in it a free offer of Christ, and of salvation through him, to sinners of every class, who hear it, for their acceptance. Saving faith, therefore, that it may correspond to the testimony believed, must include the cordial acceptance or reception of Christ, as tendered to us in the gospel. As Christ is exhibited in Scripture under various charac * Professor Bruce's Evangelical Discourses, p. 108. + Cudworth's Aphorisms on the Assurance of Faith. A new edi. tion was published in 1829, with a Recommendation by the late Rev. John Brown of Whitburn, along with two Essays on Faith by Ame rican Divines; and they have been recently published along with Treatises on Faith by E. Erskine and Dr. Anderson of America. |