' For by faith ye stand.' This principally depends upon the first words, ' We have not dominion over your faith,' because faith is such a grace as you stand by in all conditions. Nov/, what you stand by must be fii'm, it must be on a good bottom ; and what is firm must not be human, but divine. Therefore, we have no dominion over j^our faith, ' for by faith ye stand.'
Standing is a military word (mv). ' By faith ye stand,' that is, first of all faith gives a standing, a certain standing, before any conflict. It gives a standing in Christianity, it sets the soul in a frame, in a standing.
Nay, faith helps us ; we stand by faith, not only in a frame of Chris- tianity, and furnished with spiritual strength, but then we arc fit to en- counter opposition. By faith we stand to it, and stand against all oppo- sition. We stand, and stand to it, by laith.
And standing likewise implies continuance in managing Christianity, and opposing all enemies whatsoever. By faith we stand, and continue standing; we hold out in all opposition.
Standing likewise, in the next place, implies a kind of safety, together with victory at length. ' By faith ye stand.' You stand so as you are not wounded to death ; you stand so as you are kept safe, especially from mortal wounds, and altogether safe so far as you use faith as a shield, till you have got perfect victory, and feith end in triumph. So faith is that grace whereby we stand, whereby we are in a frame of religion fit to stand, and whereby we, so standing, encounter oppositions, and continue so encountering, and preserve ourselves safe, till victory be obtained. This is the full expression and comprehension of the word, ' By faith ye stand.'
Quest. Now, why is it by faith that we have this standing ?
Am. Because faith, it is that grace in the new covenant that makes the soul go out of itself. It empties the soul of all things in itself, and goes out to somewhat else, whereupon it stands. For in the new covenant, since Adam's fall, all our strength is in the ' second Adam,' our Head ; we fetch it there.* And faith is the hand of the soul.
Now, because faith in the new covenant is an emptying grace, and likewise because, as it is a grace that empties the soul, so it fastens upon another thing, whereupon it relies ; for faith is an uniting grace as well as an emptying grace. Now, faith emptying and uniting, so it makes us stand.
And likewise faith as it draws. It hath a drawing virtue, an attractive force. It is a radical gi-ace. It is hke a root ; when it knits to Christ, it sucks out and draws virtue from him. Every touch of faith draws * That is, ' thence.'— Ed.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER, 24. 519
spiritual strength and virtue ; so it causetli us to stand by the attractive virtue it hath.
And then it is the force of feith, Hkewise, to make things present ; for therein it differs from hope. Hope looks u))on things as absent. Now, the things that hope looks on as things remote and distant in time and place, faith makes them present ; therefore, it is said to be ' the evidence of things not seen,' Heb. xi. 1. Now, that that makes the soul to be strong and able to stand, it must be somewhat present. However the full possession of things be reserved, not for faith, but for vision, for compre- henders in heaven, where faith ends and determines, j'et notwithstanding faith draws so much for the present. It sets things to come so far present with such evidence and force, as it upholds the soul and makes it stand. ' It is the evidence of things not seen ; ' and thereupon it hath a kind of omnipotent power to make things that are not, to be. Heaven, and glory, and happiness, they are not for the pi'esent ; but faith, looking on them in the authority of God and the divine promises, faith makes them present by a kind of almighty power that it hath, laying hold on an Almighty power ; and hereupon it upholds the soul, it is the prop and stay of the soul, as in Heb. xi. i. seq., it signifies to stay up, to hold up as a pillar; even from this virtue it hath to make things to come present.
You see, then, what it is to stand, and how faith is fitted for this purpose, because, as I said, it is the grace of the new covenant emptying us and drawing us to Christ, from whom we di-aw all virtue, and because it makes things to come as present.
By faith we are set in a right frame and condition again, as by want of faith we fell. The same grace must set us right, for want of which we fell.
How came we to fall at the first ? You loiow Adam hearkened to his wife Eve, and she hearkened to the serpent. They trusted not in God, they began to stagger at the promises, to stagger at the word of God. Satan robbed them of the word. He observes, and continues the same art still, to take the word from us, and to cause us to stagger and doubt whether it be true or no. He comes between us and our rock, the word of God. So Adam fell. Now we must be restored by the contrary to that we fell. We fell by unbelief and distrust, by calling God's truth in ques- tion ; we must learn to stand again by the contrary grace, by faith. Thus you see the terms something unfolded. ' By faith ye stand.'