But this is not all. A scriptural beholding of the LAMB of GOD, denotes not only such a relying on CHRIST for pardon of sin, as is attended with a truly godly sorrow for it, but such a believing on him, as is productive of a holy life, and a universal chearful observance of all his divine commands. When the two disciples mentioned in our text, heard _John_ speak, we are told that they followed him, viz. the LORD JESUS CHRIST. And if GOD hath given us an hearing ear, when called upon to behold the LAMB of GOD, we shall certainly have an obedient heart, and follow him in the way of holy obedience. But then it will be an obedience flowing from love: A working not for, but from life. Not out of a servile fear of being damned, but from a grateful sense of having received the beginning of salvation in our hearts. And this is what the Apostle calls “faith working by love.” Many, I know, censure and look upon us as troublers of _Israel_, for preaching up the doctrine of justification by faith alone in the imputed righteousness of JESUS CHRIST. We own the charge. We do preach, and hope shall continue to preach it, till we can preach no more. _Luther_ stiles it, _Articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesiæ_; the article by which the church must stand or fall: and in the ninth article of our own church, it is termed, a most wholesome doctrine. Take away this, and you take away the only solid foundation upon which a truly weary and heavy-laden sinner can possibly build his hopes of pardon and acceptance in the sight of a holy and sin-avenging GOD. But why this outcry against the doctrine of justification by faith alone? They say this doctrine destroys good works. But do we, by preaching this doctrine, make void the law of GOD? No: We thereby establish the law. For, though faith alone justifies, yet, as the good old Puritans used to observe, That faith which is alone, justifieth not. Agreeable to this, speaketh the 12th article of our Church. “Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of GOD’s judgment, yet are they pleasing and acceptable to GOD in CHRIST, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by the fruit.” They, therefore, who object against our insisting upon justification by faith alone, as destructive of morality, not only betray great ignorance of the articles of our Church, and of GOD’s word, but give too great reason to suspect, that they never experienced the blessed influence of a true and lively faith in their own hearts. For true and undefiled religion, is nothing more or less, than a universal morality, founded upon the love of GOD and faith in CHRIST JESUS. And a true beholding him as pierced for our sins, will, in its own nature, sweetly compel us to cry out, “What shall we render unto the LORD?” It was this, that, perhaps, in a quarter of an hour, made that covetous worldling _Zaccheus_, give half of his goods to the poor; it was this, that all of a sudden made the Jailor wash the stripes of those whom he had but a little before thrust into an inward prison; it was this that caused _Lydia_, whose heart the LORD had opened, so freely to open her house to entertain the Apostles; and it was this that excited the Apostles themselves in general, and St. _Paul_ in particular, to bid adieu to worldly honours, to glory in nothing but the cross of CHRIST, and to fly like an arch-angel from pole to pole, publishing the blessed and everlasting gospel. “The love of CHRIST, said he, constraineth us.” Preaching faith in this manner, seems to me the only scriptural way of preaching CHRIST: and by this means we shall steer a middle course between two dangerous extremes. For to insist only upon morality and good works, and not lay a true lively faith, as a foundation whereon they are to be built, (as it is to be feared too many do) is to act like _Pharaoh_’s task-masters, and bid people make brick without shewing them ♦where to get straw. “My soul, come not thou into their secret!” On the other hand, to call upon people to believe in, and behold the LAMB of GOD, and at the same time not exhort them to maintain good works, as an evidence and fruit of their beholding him, is the way to turn the grace of GOD into lasciviousness. And therefore, however evangelical such preachers may seem in their own eyes, yet if the writings of _Moses_ and the Prophets, of our LORD and his Apostles, are to be our judges, they do not rightly divide the word of truth. “To their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united!”
♦ “were” replaced with “where”