That which added ready willingness to my obedi- ence unto your commands for the preaching and pub-
Cclvi THK EPISTLE DEDICATORV.
lishing hereof, being- a serious proposal for the ad- vancement and propagation of the gospel in another nation, is here again recommended to your thoughts, by Your most humble servant,
In our common Master,
J. Owen.
March 8, 1649.
THE STEADFASTNESS OF PROMISES, &C. 257
SERMON IV.
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. — Rom. iv. 20.
In the first chapters of this epistle, the apostle, from Scrip- ture, and the constant practice of all sorts of men, of all ages, Jews and Gentiles, wise and barbarians, proves all the world, and every individual therein, to 'have sinned and come short of the glory of God :' and not only so, but that it was utterly impossible, that by their own strength, or by virtue of any assistance communicated, or privileges enjoyed, they should ever attain to a righteousness of their own, that might be acceptable unto God.
Hereupon he concludes that discourse with these two positive assertions : First, That for what is past, * every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God ;' chap. iii. 19. Secondly, For the future, though they should labour to amend their ways, and improve their assistances and privileges to abetter advantage than formerly, * yet by the deeds of the law, shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God ;' ver. 20.
Now it being the main drift of the apostle, in this epistle, and in his whole employment, to manifest that God hath not shut up all the sons of men, hopeless and remediless under this condition ; he immediately discovers and opens the rich supply, which God in free grace hath made and provided, for the delivery of his own from this calamitous estate, even by the righteousness of faith in Christ, which he unfoldeth, asserteth, proves, and vindicates from objections, to the end of the third chapter.
This being a matter of so great weight, as, comprising in itself the sum of the gospel wherewith he was intrusted ; the honour and exaltation of Christ, which above all he de- sired ; the great design of God to be glorious in his saints ; and in a word, the chief subject of the ambassage from Christ, to him committed (to wit, that they who neither have, nor by any means can attain a righteousness of their own, by the utmost of their workings, may yet have that which is com- plete and unrefusable in Christ, by believing), he therefore
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258 THE STEADFASTNESS OF PROMISES,
strongly confirms it in the fourth chapter, by testimony and example of the Scripture, with the saints that were of old : thereby also declaring, that though the manifestation of this mystery, were now more fully opened by Christ from the bosom of the Father, yet indeed this was the only way for any to appear in the presence of God, ever since sin entered into the world.
To make his demonstrations the more evident, he singleth out one for an example, who was eminently known, and confessed by all to have been the friend of God, to have been righteous and justified before him, and thereon to have held sweet communion with him all his days ; to wit, Abraham, the father according to the flesh, of all those, who put in the strongest of all men for a share in righteousness, by the privileges they did enjoy, and the works they did perform.
Now concerning him, the apostle proves abundantly in the beginning of the fourth chapter, that the justification which he found, and the righteousness he attained, was purely that, and no other, which he before described ; to wit, a righteousness in the forgiveness of sins, through faith in the blood of Christ. Yea, and that all the privileges and exaltations of this Abraham, which made him so signal and eminent among the saints of God, as to be called ' the father of the faithful,' were merely from hence, that this righteous- ness of grace was freely discovered, and fully established unto him : an enjoyment being granted him in a peculiar manner, by faith of that promise, wherein the Lord Christ, with the whole spring of the righteousness mentioned, was inwrapped. This the apostle pursues with sundry and various inferences and conclusions, to the end of ver. 17. chap. iv.
Having laid down this, in the next place he gives us a description of that faith of Abraham, whereby he became inheritor of those excellent things, from the adjuncts of it. That as his justification was proposed as an example of God's dealing with us by his grace, so his faith might be laid down as a pattern for us, in the receiving that grace.
Now this he doth, from
First, The foundation of it, whereon it rested.
Secondly, The matter of it, what he believed.
AND SINFULNESS OF STAGGERING, 259
Thirdly, The manner of it, or how he believed.
First, From the bottom and foundation on which it rested, viz. The omnipotency or all-sufficiency of God, whereby he was able to fulfil whatever he had engaged himself unto by promise, and which he called him to be- lieve, ver. 14. ' He believed him who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not, as though they were.'