3. Again, faith doth not justify in the sense of the Antinomians, as a receiving witness of the Spirit's testimony. They say there is the sealing and receiving witness, and rnake the sealing witness to be the Spirit of God, and the receiving witness to be faith. They take faith to be nothing else but assui-ance ; but that is a thing that follows upon faith. We may be justified, tbough we have not received this solemn testimony and witness by the Holy Ghost. Assurance is spoken of as a thing consequent to faith : Eph. i. 13, 'After ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise;' first faith, then sealing. The Spirit's testimony is notidng but the certioration of giace already wrought, and is subsequent to the testimony of the renewed conscience : Rom. viii. 16, 'The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.' The Holy Ghost doth not seal to a blank. First there must be faith, then the Spirit of God puts on his seal.
Ans. 2. Positively, faith only justifies as an instrument which God hath deputed to the apprehension and application of Christ's right- eousness. The whole order and process is this : by effectual calling God begets faith ; by faith there is union wrought with Christ ; by being united to Christ there is possession of all of Christ ; upon this possession God looks upon us as righteous ; God looking up- on us as righteous, prononnceth the sentence of justification ; which sentence is double, an acquitting us from our sins, and accepting of us in Christ — we are absolved from all sin and death by a free and full pardon, and that is done chiefly by the passive obedience of Christ — and we are accepted as righteous to eternal life, and that is the fruit of his active obedience, or of his fulfilling the law for us.
1. By effectual calling God begets faith. The immediate end of effectual callins; is to work faith. We are called to holiness and called
VeH. 4.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 479
to glory ; these are expressions everywhere in the scriptures ; but the immediate fruit of calling is faith : 2 Thes. ii. 14, ' Whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ/ ' Whereunto,' meaning faith, mentioned in the words before; there is the first end of calling to close with Christ ; then the last end, that we may be glorified. The voice of all the calls and invitations of the word is. Come unto me, and come unto Christ.
'2. By faith there is union wrought with Christ. Faith is the bond of the spiritual unicm. We are said to live in him by faith: Gal. ii. 20, ' The lite which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.' And he is said to dwell in us by faith : Eph. iii. 17, ' That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.' Now union there must be, for Christ's garments do only cover the members of his own body.
3. Being united to Christ, we are possessed of all that is in Christ, so far as is consistent with our capacity of receiving, and God's ordina- tion and appointment in giving. Union gives us interest in the personal merits and righteousness of Christ, and the benefit of his mediatory actions ; they are ours to all effects and purposes, as if we ourselves had satisfied and obeyed the law. Wliy ? because it is not in a person severed from us ; it is in our head, in one to whom we are united by a strait bond of union, and therefore they ai-e reputed as ours. It is true, we are not mediators and redeemers as Christ, because that is not con- sistent with our estate, nor with the will of God ; but it consists with the will of God, that we shall be made righteous with his righteousness : 1 Cor. i. 30, it is the Father's pleasure, ' In him are ye in Christ Jesus ; ' that is, by virtue of our imion, God hath willed this ; ' who of God is made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption ; ' 2 Cor. v. 21, ' He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' There is as real a donation and as effectual an application of Christ's righteousness to us, as tiiere was of our sins to Christ. And as by virtue of the latter it pleased the Father to deal with Christ as a sinner; so by virtue of the former it pleased the Father so to deal with us, and to accept of us as rigliteous. Loolc, as we may be by the ordination of God made guilty of Adam's sin, though we be not in his public capacity of being a public person and representer of all mankind ; so we may be made righteous with Christ's active obedience, though we are not mediators and redeemers, for that was his particular capacity and relation fixed in his person. In short, being united to Christ, we are interested in all his actions as if they were ours ; for when we are one with him in the spirit, then we are considered by God as one with him in law. The judicial union always follows the mystical. As the payment of the debt surely is imputed and reckoned to the debtor ; so Jesus Christ being our surety, Heb vii. 22, his righeousness is imputed to us. Therefore by union we are said. Gal. iii. 27, ' to put on Ciirist,' with all his personal merits and. righteousness.