It is our belief of God’s testimony concerning His own grace and Christ’s work that brings us into possession of the blessings concerning which that testimony speaks. Our reception of God’s testimony is confidence in God Himself, and in Christ Jesus His Son; for where the testimony comes from a person or regards a person, belief of the testimony and confidence in the person are things inseparable. Hence it is that Scripture sometimes speaks of confidence or trust as saving us, (see the Psalms everywhere, e.g., 13:5, 52:8; also 1 Tim 4:10, Eph 1:12), as if it would say to the sinner, Such is the gracious character of God, that you have only to put your case into His hands, however bad it be only to trust Him for eternal life and He will assuredly not put you to shame. Hence, also, it is that we are said to be saved by the knowledge of God or of Christ; that is, by simply knowing God as He has made Himself known to us, (Isa 5:3,11; 1 Tim 2:4; 2 Pet 2:20); for this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent, (John 17:2). And as if to make simplicity more simple, the apostle, in speaking of the facts of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, says, By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, (1 Cor 15:1,2).

God would have us understand that the way in which we become connected with Christ so as to get eternal life is by knowing Him, or hearing Him trusting Him. The testimony is inseparably linked to the person testified of; and our connexion with the testimony, by belief of it, thus links us to the person. Thus it is that faith forms the bond between us and the Son of God, not because of anything in itself, but solely because it is only through the medium of truth known and believed that the soul can take any hold of God or of Christ. Faith is nothing, save as it lays hold of Christ, and it does so by laying hold of the truth concerning Him. By grace are ye saved THROUGH FAITH; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (Eph 2:8).

Faith, then, is the link, the one link between the sinner and God’s gift of pardon and life. It is not faith, and something else along with it; it is faith alone; faith that takes God at His word, and gives Him credit for speaking the honest truth when making known His message of grace His record of eternal life concerning the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, (John 1:29).

If you object that you cannot believe, then this indicates that you are proceeding quite in a wrong direction. You are still laboring under the idea that this believing is a work to be done by you, and not the acknowledgment of a work done by another. You would fain do something in order to get peace, and you think that if you could only do this great thing, ‘believing’ if you could but perform this great act called faith God would at once reward you by giving you peace. Thus faith is reckoned by you to be the price in the sinner’s hand by which he buys peace, and not the mere holding out of the hand to get a peace which has already been bought by another. So long as you are attaching any meritorious importance to faith, however unconsciously, you are moving in a wrong direction a direction from which no peace can come.

Surely faith is not a work. On the contrary, it is a ceasing from work. It is not a climbing of the mountain, but a ceasing to attempt it, and allowing Christ to carry you up in His own arms. You seem to think that it is your own act of faith that is to save you, and not the object of your faith, without which your own act, however well performed, is nothing. Accordingly, you bethink yourself, and say, ‘What a mighty work is this believing what an effort does it require on my part how am I to perform it?’ Herein you sadly err, and your mistake lies chiefly here, in supposing that your peace is to come from the proper performance on your part of an act of faith, whereas it is to come entirely from the proper perception of Him to whom the Father is pointing your eye, and in regard to whom He is saying, ‘Behold my servant whom I have chosen, look at Him, forget everything else everything about yourself, your own faith, your own repentance, your own feelings and look at Him!’ It is in Him, and not in your poor act of faith, that salvation lies, and out of Him, not out of your own act of faith, is peace to come.

Thus mistaking the meaning of faith, and the way in which faith saves you, you get into confusion, and mistake everything else connected with your peace. You mistake the real nature of that very inability to believe of which you complain so sadly. For that inability does no lie, as you fancy it does, in the impossibility of your performing aright this great act of faith, but of ceasing from all such self-righteous attempts to perform any act, or do any work whatsoever, in order to your being saved. So that the real truth is, that you have not yet seen such a sufficiency in the one great work of the Son of God upon the cross, as to lead you utterly to discontinue your mistaken and aimless efforts to work out something of your own. As soon as the Holy Spirit shews you have this entire sufficiency of the great propitiation, you cease at once from these attempts to act or work something of your own, and take, instead of this, what Christ has done. One great part of the Spirit’s work is, not to enable the man to do something which will help to save him, but so to detach him from his own performances, that he shall be content with the salvation which Christ finished when He died and rose again.

But perhaps you may object further, that you are not satisfied with your faith. No, truly, nor are you ever likely to be. If you wait for this before you take peace, you will wait till life is done. The Bible does not say, ‘Being satisfied about our faith, we have peace with God;’ it simply says, ‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God,’ (Rom 5:1). Not satisfaction with your own faith, but satisfaction with Jesus and His work this is what God presses on you. You say, ‘I am satisfied with Christ.’ Are you? What more, then do you wish? Is not satisfaction with Christ enough for you, or for any sinner? Nay, and is not this the truest kind of faith? To be satisfied with Christ, that is faith in Christ. To be satisfied with His blood, that is faith in His blood. What more could you have? Can your faith give you something which Christ cannot? or will Christ give you nothing till you can produce faith of a certain kind and quality, whose excellencies will entitle you to blessing? Do not bewilder yourself. Do not suppose that your faith is a price, or a bribe, or a merit. Is not the very essence of real faith just your being satisfied with Christ? Are you really satisfied with Him, and with what He has done? Then do not puzzle yourself about your faith, but go upon your way rejoicing, having thus been brought to be satisfied with Him, whom to know is peace, and life, and salvation.

You are not satisfied with your faith, you say. I am glad that you are not. Had you been so, you would have been far out of the way indeed. Does Scripture anywhere speak of your getting peace by your becoming satisfied with your faith? Nay does it not take for granted that you will, to the very last, be dissatisfied with yourself, with your faith, with all about you and within you, and satisfied with Jesus only? Are you then satisfied with Him? Then go in peace. For if satisfaction with Him will not give you peace, nothing else that either heaven or earth contains will ever give you peace. Though your faith should become so perfect that you were entirely satisfied with it, that would not pacify your conscience or relieve your fears. Faith, however perfect, has of itself nothing to give you, either of pardon or of life. Its finger points you to Jesus. Its voice bids you look straight to Him. Its object is to turn away from itself and from yourself altogether, that you may behold Him, and in beholding Him be satisfied with Him; and, in being satisfied with Him have ‘joy and peace.’ 10

Faith is not what we feel or see, it is a simple trust

In what the God of Love has said, of JESUS, as the ‘Just.’

What JESUS is, and that alone, is faith’s delightful plea,

It never deals with sinful self, nor righteous self, in me.

It tells me I am counted ‘dead,’ by God, in His own Word,

It tells me I am ‘born again,’ in CHRIST, my risen Lord.

If He is free, then I am free, from all unrighteousness;

If He is just, then I am just, He is MY righteousness.

I now leave off addressing myself specially to the unconverted awakened, that I may lay a few thoughts before brethren in Christ who are awakening to a deeper sense of their obligations and responsibilities.

We are living in a most important era of our world’s history! How melancholy the condition, and how ominous of evil the attitude of earth’s nations! Warlike powers confront each other, and the blood of their embattled hosts is shed in torrents! How persevering and successful is man in carrying forward his gigantic schemes and favorite movements! Strange is it also, that an all but universal cry for regeneration among earth’s nations should be made simultaneously with a cry for the Holy Ghost to achieve for the professing Church a mighty spiritual revival.

We cannot help being stimulated in our exertions for the cause of Christ, by contiguity to unceasing earthly activity manifested on every side; but were this our only incentive to action, our zeal would be spurious; for all effort and activity in promoting the gospel which are the offspring of mere imitation, and originate only in proximity to the activity displayed by the world, instead of being based on personal faith in Christ and living communion with God, form nothing higher and nothing better than a fair show in the flesh.

But we have reason to believe that a mighty breath of the Divine Spirit is now passing over the earth. The Church of the living God, scattered throughout the different denominations, has been feeling its influence; and the result of His gracious presence and quickening power is appearing in greatly increased religious activity and zeal for the conversion of souls. This is matter for thankfulness. We need to have a renewal of our youth that we may be healthy, fresh, and vigorous to engage energetically in the great work that is to be done for God in these eventful days that are now passing over us. And let us ever bear in mind that the grand prerequisite to thorough usefulness is, that we ourselves should be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God, (Eph 3:16-19). If we would be filled with the grace of God and refreshed in our souls, it is essential, at such a time as the present, that we should constantly recall and deeply ponder the great foundation truths on which we rested at the time of our conversion. Looking unto Jesus (Heb 12:2) is the most refreshing exercise in which we can engage; and the shortest road to genuine spiritual revival is by the cross of Calvary.

When the Rev. W. H. Hewitson was on his deathbed, and had several texts illustrative of the faithfulness of God quoted to him by a friend, he remarked after his friend had withdrawn: Texts like these do not give me so much comfort, as ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,’ (John 3:16); or, ‘He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?’ (ROM 8:32). Plain doctrinal statements, exhibiting the heart of God, are more sustaining to me than mere promises. I like to get into contact with the living person. This experience is very common in such circumstances. When the most intelligent Christian draws near to death, he feels that he can rest with confidence on nothing except the great elementary truths of God’s glorious gospel, and the living person of His risen Son. And when we are in a state of spiritual decay; when our soul is full of troubles, and our life draweth nigh unto the grave, (Ps 88:3); when our spirit is overwhelmed, and our heart within us is desolate, (Ps 113:4); there is nothing so reviving and invigorating as the leading fundamental truths of the gospel of Christ. The faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief, (1 Tim 1:15), is at once the means of reviving the Christian, and of giving life to the self-despairing sinner; for the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, (ROM 1:16). None but Jesus can avail us either for peace of conscience with reference to past transgressions, peace of heart with reference to present circumstances, or for peace of mind with reference to future prospects. This is not theory, but experience, as every child of God knows.

I feel, writes another, that nothing can do me good but personal contact with the living person of the Lord Jesus. Looking at systems and creeds doctrines and duties may be all very well in its own place, but if I am to be a healthy, fruit-bearing Christian, I must look steadily and confidingly to the great High Priest who assumed our nature to bear our sins and win our confidence. When, by faith, we are enabled to fix a steady gaze on Jesus, how little do we care for the smile or frown of the world! ‘Looking unto Jesus’ enables the ‘worm Jacob’ to ‘thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff,’ (Isa 41:15). But I often feel that it is a very difficult matter to look away from myself, though I am sure I never get anything there to make me feel happy. No, all is in my Redeemer, and it is only when I am looking to Him as all my salvation that I feel satisfied, and think I could face death with composure.

The late Lady Colquhoun was one who knew the preciousness and power of resting on Christ Jesus alone for peace, comfort, and salvation, and from personal experience she was able to teach others also. Writing to a young friend, she gave this excellent counsel: As well in our winters as our summers the foundation standeth sure ‘Christ is all.’ With Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Precious truth! Let us rest upon it, and cease from the vain endeavor to find anything in us that can give the shadow of hope. Abiding hope must be fixed on the object that changeth not. We change daily, hourly. He remains glorious in holiness eternally. And this perfection is in the court of heaven our representative. Can we want more? Shall we say, I will add a few of my virtues and graces to the account? When we are guilty of this folly, we weary ourselves seeking for them, for they cannot be found, and our harp hangs upon the willows. But we resume the songs of Zion when we look entirely from ourselves to ‘the Lord our righteousness.’ How is it with you? Can you rejoice in the Lord always? If not, experience will teach you that living on frames and feelings will not do that comfort ebbs and flows with them and that you equally delude yourself when you take comfort from the feeling of nearness to God, or when you lose it because you lack that joy in devotional exercises, which is, nevertheless, extremely desirable, and much to be prized. This, however, is distinct from joy in Christ crucified, and in Christ our righteousness; and it is very possible to feel little heart for prayer, and to mourn an absent God, and yet to stand firm on the sure foundation, rejoicing in Christ, and never doubting that we are complete in Him.

The reason why many real Christians are harassed with doubts, fears, and darkness, is that they leave off leaning entirely upon their beloved Savior, and rest part of the weight of their souls’ eternal well-being on their own experience. The fruits of righteousness wrought in us by the grace of the Holy Spirit are precious as evidences, but they cannot be trusted as grounds of salvation, unless with much spiritual detriment to our souls. Leigh Richmond, writing to his mother, says: Your occasional doubts and fears arise from too much considering faith and repentance as the grounds, rather than the evidences, of salvation. Our salvation is not because we do well, but because ‘He in whom we trust hath done all things well.’ The believing sinner is never more happy and secure than when at the same moment, he beholds and feels his own vileness, and also his Savior’s excellence. You look at yourself too much, and at the infinite price paid for you too little. For conviction you must look at yourself, but for comfort to your Savior Thus the wounded Israelites were to look only at the brazen serpent for recovery. The graces of the Spirit are good things for others to judge us by, but it is Christ Himself received, believed in, rested upon, loved, and followed, that will speak peace to ourselves. By looking unto Him we shall grow holy; and the more holy we grow, the more we shall mourn over sin, and be sensible how very far short we come of what we yet desire to be. While our sanctification is a gradual and still imperfect work, our justification is perfect and complete: the former is wrought in us, the latter for us. Rely simply as a worthless sinner on the Savior, and the latter is all your own, with its accompanying blessings of pardon, acceptance, adoption, and the non-imputation of sin to your charge. Hence will flow thankful obedience, devotedness of heart, &c. This salvation is by faith alone, and thus saving faith works by love. Embrace these principles freely, fully, and impartially, and you will enjoy a truly scriptural peace, assurance and comfort.

For if Christ be born within, Soon that likeness shall appear

Which the heart had lost through sin, God’s own image fair and clear,

And the soul serene and bright, Mirrors back His heavenly light.

It is noteworthy that the apostle Paul, who most strenuously upholds justification by faith in Jesus, always connects it with holy living, and frequently shews that it is the firm belief of the truth of the doctrine that leads to new obedience in the life. In his Epistle to Titus, after speaking of Jesus Christ our Savior, and being justified by His grace, and made heirs according to the hope of eternal life, he directs that the doctrine of salvation by free grace alone should be affirmed constantly in order that believers might maintain good works, (Titus 3:4-8). And there can never be good works but on the principle of being justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, (Gal 2:16). We never do good works until we do them because we are saved, not in order to be so. A lively sense of many sins forgiven will make us love much and shew it practically, (Luke 7:47). And we should have such a vital connexion with Christ, and such intimate fellowship with Him, as will exclude all surmisings as to our acceptance. If we are to render Paul-like service, we must exercise Paul-like experience. And this is a record of how he believed and lived: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me, (Gal 2:20). We must be well assured of the love of God in Christ Jesus, to our own souls in particular, before we will be able to say, This one thing I do: I strive to be holy as God is holy. Saving faith, says one of the best of the old writers has always a sanctifying and comforting influence. The true believer does not divide righteousness from sanctification, nor pardon from purity. Yea, he comes to Christ for the remission of sins for the right end; and that is, that being freed from the guilt of sin, we may be freed from the dominion of it. Knowing that there is forgiveness with Him that He might be feared, he does not believe in remission of sin that he may indulge himself in the commission of sin. No, no; the blood of Christ, that purges the conscience from the guilt of sin, does also purge the conscience from dead works, to serve the living God. They that come to Christ in a scriptural way come to Him for righteousness, that they may have Him also for sanctification; otherwise, the man does not really desire the favor and enjoyment of God, or to be in friendship with Him who is a holy God. The true believer employs Christ for making him holy as well as happy, and hence draws virtue from Him for killing sin, and quickening him in the way of duty. The faith that can never keep you from sin will never keep you out of hell; and the faith that cannot carry you to your duty will not carry you to heaven. Justifying faith is a sanctifying grace. It is true, as it sanctifies it does not justify; but that faith that justifies does also sanctify. As the sun that enlighteneth hath heat with it; but it is not the heat of the sun that enlightens, but the light thereof; so that faith that justifies hath love and sanctity with it; but it is not the love and sanctity that justify, but faith as closing with Christ.

If a man hath no faith in the Lord’s goodness, no hope of His favor in Christ, where is his purity and holiness? Nay, it is he that hath this hope that purifies himself as God is pure. I know not what experience you have but some of us know, that when our souls are most comforted and enlarged with the faith of God’s favor through Christ, and with the hope of His goodness, then we have most heart to our duties; and when, through unbelief, we have harsh thoughts of God as an angry judge, then we have no heart to duties and religious exercises; and I persuade myself this is the experience of the saints in all ages. There is thus an inseparable connexion between our believing the love of God to us in Christ Jesus, holiness, and spiritual comfort. Unless we draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith we cannot expect to have our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water, (Heb 10:22).

And as the blood of Jesus is our ground of confidence in coming to God at the first for forgiveness of our sins, our mainstay in trouble, and the spring of all worthy obedience, so must it be our only plea in approaching our heavenly Father for all needed spiritual blessings. If we wish to have our own souls quickened and revived, or a great work of the Spirit achieved throughout the land, and millions of souls converted, the name of Jesus must be our only plea, as we come to plead for these blessings at the throne of grace. In all true prayer, says another, great stress should be laid on the blood of Jesus: perhaps no evidence distinguishes a declension in the power and spirituality of prayer more strongly than an overlooking of this. Where the atoning blood is kept out of view, not recognized, not pleaded, not made the grand plea, there is a deficiency of power in prayer. Words are nothing, fluency of expression nothing, niceties of language and brilliancy of thought nothing, where the blood of Christ the new and living way of access to God, the grand plea that moves Omnipotence, that gives admission within the holy of holies is slighted, undervalued, and not made the groundwork of every petition. Oh, how much is this overlooked in our prayers how is the atoning blood of Immanuel slighted! How little mention we hear of it in the sanctuary, in the pulpit, in the social circle! Whereas it is this that makes prayer what it is with God. All prayer is acceptable with God, and only so, as it comes up perfumed with the blood of Christ; all prayer is answered as it urges the blood of Christ as its plea; it is the blood of Christ that satisfies justice, and meets all the demands of the law against us; it is the blood of Christ that purchases and brings down every blessing into the soul; it is the blood of Christ that sues for the fulfillment of His last will and testament, every precious legacy of which comes to us solely on account of His death; this it is too that gives us boldness at the throne of grace. How can a poor sinner approach without this? How can he look up how can he ask how can he present himself before a holy God, but as he brings in the hand of faith the precious blood of Jesus? Out of Christ, God can hold no communication with us; all intercourse is suspended every avenue of approach is closed all blessing is withheld. God has crowned His dearly-beloved Son, and He will have us crown Him too; and never do we place a brighter crown upon His blessed head than when we plead His finished righteousness as the ground of our acceptance, and His atoning blood as our great argument for the bestowment of all blessing with God.

If, then dear reader, you feel yourself to be a poor, vile, unholy sinner if a backslider, whose feet have wandered from the Lord, in whose soul the spirit of prayer has declined, and yet still feel some secret longing to return, and dare not, because so vile, so unholy, so backsliding; yet you may return, ‘having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,’ (Heb 10:19). Come, for the blood of Jesus pleads; return, for the blood of Jesus gives you welcome. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, (1 John 2:1). And if you are stirred in spirit for the souls of the perishing around you that they may be saved, and for the work of God that it may be revived, make mention of THE BLOOD OF JESUS, and you may rest satisfied that you have the petitions that you desired of him, (1 John 5:15). Jesus has passed His word, that on doing this you shall obtain the desires of your heart; for He says, If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you, (John 15:7). Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you...Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full, (John 16:23,24). If, then, there be no great revival of God’s work, no great awakening and conversion of perishing souls, may it not be because this sin lieth at our door, that we have not used the blood of Jesus as our all-prevailing plea in prayer? Oh! let us no longer employ that precious blood so sparingly in our pleadings for revival, but let us urge it as our only and our constant plea, and prove God herewith, whether He will not pour us out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it, (Mal 3:10).

Our matured conviction is that the great thing needed at present is not so much revival sermons, or revival prayer-meetings, as REVIVAL TRUTH; and as the very essence of that truth is the gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, (ROM 1:1,2), or, in other words, the testimony of the Holy Ghost (externally in the preaching of the Word, and internally in its spiritual application) to the all-sufficiency and infallible efficacy of THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST, (1 Pet 1:19), that which is preeminently required in order to the general revival of religion is a full, clear, intelligent, and earnest utterance of the grand leading doctrines of the gospel of the grace of God, (Acts 20:24). True revival is not obtainable by merely preaching about revival, but by the constant proclamation of that all-important truth which is employed by the Holy Ghost to produce it, that Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God (1 Pet 3:18). He will prove the most effective preacher in bringing about a holy, deep, spiritual revival, who gives the greatest prominence to these three great facts, That CHRIST DIED for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He WAS BURIED; and that HE AROSE AGAIN the third day according to the Scriptures, (1 Cor 15:3,4).

And I am convinced that the reason why so many ministers exhaust nearly all their converting power (I mean instrumentally) during the first few years of their ministry, while some continue to possess it, and finish their course with joy, is greatly owing to the former leaving the simplicity that is in Christ and betaking themselves to sermon-writing about secondary matters, while the latter make CHRIST CRUCIFIED their Alpha and Omega. Oh, that all the ministers of Jesus Christ would return, for a few months at least every year, to all the common texts from which they preached discourses which seemed to be so much blessed to awaken and save souls in the early days of their ministry! Were they to take a series of such texts as Matthew 11:28: John 3:16: Romans 1:16: 1 Corinthians 2:2; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; 1 John 1:7; and, after restudying them, and bringing all the light of their reading, spiritual insight, and experience to bear upon the exposition and enforcement of them, to preach from them with the Holy Ghost, and with a lively faith, that, by the grace of the Holy Spirit accompanying their preaching, the unconverted among their people would be immediately converted, there might be a great and general awakening, and tens of thousands might be added to the Lord.

It is also of vast importance to present the truth of the gospel as the Holy Ghost Himself has presented it to us in the word of Christ, (Col 3:16). It has been well said: The derangement of God’s order of truth is quite as dangerous and far more subtle than the denial of the truth itself. In fact, to reverse the order is to deny the truth. We are not merely to maintain both Christ’s work and the Spirit’s work in their individual integrity, but in their exact scriptural order. We believe that the refreshing truth, that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin, (1 John 1:7), is the great central sun which sheds a flood of light on the whole system of divine revelation. Atonement by the bloodshedding of Christ is the substratum of Christianity; for the sole ground of a sinner’s peace with God is THE BLOOD OF JESUS. We who were at one time far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ; for He is our peace, (Eph 2:13,14), in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, (Eph 1:7); and so, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, (ROM 3:24,25), we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, (ROM 5:1,2).

In the Westminster Assembly’s Shorter Catechism, which is considered by all orthodox people to be an excellent summary of Christian doctrine, you will find the very same truth stated which we have advanced and confirmed by the above quotations, and which we have been writing for publication almost daily for the last ten years.

The answer to the question in that Catechism, What doth God require of us that we may escape His wrath and curse due to us for sin? commences with, God requireth of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, &c. Now, this shews that the framers of that symbol of sound doctrine were accurate in their conceptions, and precise in their statement of the order and position of this great scriptural truth. They suppose an anxious inquirer desirous of knowing how he is to escape the wrath and curse of God due to him for sin; and do they say that the first thing he is to do is to pray for the Holy Spirit, and get his mind changed, and his unholy heart sanctified, previously to his believing in Jesus? No. The very first thing they teach the awakened sinner to do is, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Now this is all the more remarkable, considering that, when laying down the system of divine truth theologically, they had placed effectual calling by the Divine Spirit before justification by faith. There they speak to the intellect of the converted man and instructed Christian; but here the matter is reversed when an anxious sinner is to be guided as to what he is to do to be saved, and we have faith in Jesus Christ placed before repentance unto life; shewing us that they held, that while we must ever acknowledge the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s work in order to the creation, and exercise of saving faith, we should never direct an anxious sinner to look to the Spirit as his Savior, but to Christ alone; never direct an inquirer to seek first an inward change, but an outward one a justified state in order to enjoying a sanctified heart the former being the necessary precursor of the latter.

Repentance is, properly speaking, a change of mind, or a new mind about God; regeneration is a change of heart, or a new heart towards God; conversion is a change of life, or a new life for God; adoption is a change of family, or a new relationship to God; sanctification is a change of employment, or a consecration of all to God; glorification is a change of place, or a new condition with God, but justification, which is a change of state, or a new standing before God, must be presented to the anxious inquirer as going before all, for being accepted in the Beloved is the foundation and cause of all, or more properly speaking, the precious seed from which all the rest spring, blossom, and bear fruit: and, consequently, the first and great duty of those who have to deal with awakened souls is to make this very clear, and to keep them incessantly in contact with the blessed evangelical truth: A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, (Gal 2:16).

From all this you will observe, dear reader, that I am not settling the position which a doctrine in theology ought to hold, but simply dealing with the practical necessities of an anxious inquirer. Were I called upon to state my views theoretically, I would say, they are described by what another has termed Jehovahism, for of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever, (ROM 11:36); but I am not contemplating the sinner as standing before the throne of glory, but before the throne of grace, and I am not endeavoring to settle a subtle question in theology, but to give the practical solution of an urgent question of salvation. I am not attempting to lay down a system of divinity, but to discover the kind and order of truth divinely appointed and fitted to bring immediate peace to awakened and inquiring souls. And hoping to accomplish this most important end, I present JESUS ONLY, for He is our peace, who having made peace through the blood of His cross, (Col 1:20), has come and preached peace, (Eph 2:17), by His everlasting gospel, to them who were afar off, and to them that were nigh.

The first practical step towards realizing and acknowledging the sovereignty of God, is to let the peace of God rule in your hearts, (Col 3:15). You may hold a sound creed with a proud, unbroken heart, and be more deeply damned on that very account. But if you wish to know God in all the glory of His being and attributes, you must grasp the manifestation of that glory as it is embodied and manifested in the person of Jesus Christ. You can know the glory of God as a Sovereign only by realizing His grace as a Savior For God was manifest in the flesh, (1 Tim 3:16). The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth, (John 1:14). Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him, (Matt 11:27).

A mind at ‘perfect peace‘ with God; Oh, what a word is this!

A sinner reconciled through blood; This, this, indeed, is peace!

By nature and by practice far How very far! from God;

Yet now by grace brought nigh to Him, through faith in Jesus’ blood.

So nigh, so very nigh to God, I cannot nearer be;

For in the Person of His Son, I am as near as He.

So dear, so very dear to God, More dear I cannot be;

The love wherewith He loves the Son, Such is His love to me.

Why should I ever careful be, Since such a God is mine?

He watches o’er me night and day, And tells me, ‘Mine is thine.’

The great work which the Holy Spirit is now occupied in performing, is that of directing sinners to Jesus, and inclining and enabling them to come to Him, that they may be saved; and since this is the case, I am a fellow-worker with God the Holy Spirit only in so far as I tell anxious sinners TO LOOK TO JESUS ONLY, and have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, as their first and great business; and this one thing I do.

The question is not, whether do we think it scriptural for an awakened sinner to desire the secret and power-giving presence of the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of his understanding, and shew him the all-sufficiency of Christ. That is what neither we nor any other true Christian would for a moment think of forbidding. Nor is it the question, whether the work of the Holy Spirit be necessary in order to salvation. The very fact of writing as we have done on regeneration in a previous chapter, as well as writing (11) to encourage our brethren to meet together, and also meeting ourselves, to pray for the Holy Spirit to put forth His reviving, sanctifying, convincing, and converting power, will satisfy all ingenuous minds that we hold the absolute necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in order to the regeneration and conversion of perishing souls.

The only question, then, which falls to be considered is, What am I to say to an awakened and anxious sinner? Am I to say simply Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved (Acts 16:31), as said the apostle of the Gentiles to the trembling jailer of Philippi? or am I, as the first thing I do, to exhort him to pray for the Holy Spirit to convince him more deeply of his sin, enlighten his darkened understanding, renew his perverse will, and enable him to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to the saving of his soul? Am I to direct him, as the grand thing he has to do, to believe in Jesus, and accept His bloodshedding as the only foundation of his peace with God; or to seek the work of the Spirit as an addition to Christ’s work, in order that he may be justified? The former leads to justification by faith alone, the true Apostolic doctrine of the churches of the first age; the latter leads to justification by sanctification, the pernicious doctrine of a later era, by embracing which a man can never reach any satisfactory assurance that his sins are pardoned, even after a lifetime’s religious experience and devout and sincere performance of religious duties; whereas, by teaching salvation by the blood of Christ alone, a man may, like the Philippian jailer, rejoice, believing in God with all his house, (Acts 16:34), in the same hour in which Christ is presented as the alone object of personal faith and consequent reconciliation.

There is, we regret to think, a large class of professing Christians who seem to have the unfounded notion ingrained in their minds, that Christ came as a Savior in the fulness of time, and on being rejected and received up into glory, the Holy Spirit came down to be the Savior of sinners in His stead, and that whether men are now to be saved or lost depends entirely on the work of the Holy Spirit in them, and not on the work of Christ done for them; whereas the Holy Spirit was given as the crowning evidence that JESUS IS STILL THE SAVIOR, even now that He is in heaven; and the great work of the Spirit is not to assume the place of Jesus as our Savior, but to bear witness to Christ Jesus as the only Savior, and by His quickening grace bring lost sinners to Him, that they may become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:26). This He did on the blessed day of Pentecost, when thousands of divinely quickened souls received His testimony, believed in the name of Jesus, and obtained remission of sins (Acts 2:38).

The Holy Ghost is not the Savior, and He never professed to be so, but His great work, in so far as the unconverted are concerned, is to direct sinners to the Savior, and to get them persuaded to embrace Him and rely upon Him. When speaking of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said distinctly to His disciples, He shall not speak of Himself...HE SHALL GLORIFY ME (John 16:13,14). If to glorify Christ be the grand aim and peculiar work of the Holy Spirit, should it not also be the grand aim and constant work of those who believe in Him, and more especially of the ministers of His gospel?

The whole drift of the Holy Spirit’s inspired oracles, as we have them in the Bible, is to glorify Christ; and the gospel ministry has been granted by Him (Eph 4:11,12), to keep the purport of those Scriptures incessantly before the minds of men, and in so doing to beseech sinners to be reconciled to God. Now, Holy Scripture throughout clearly teaches that, simply on account of the one finished, all-sufficient and eternally efficacious work of Christ, sinners who believe in Him are justified from all things ; that we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood (ROM 3:24,25); and we are justified as sinners, as ungodly, (ROM 5:6,8) and not as having an incipient personal righteousness wrought in us by the Holy Ghost. Few men, with the Word of God in their hands, would subscribe to such a doctrine; and yet it is the latent creed of the great majority of professing Christians. It is, in fact, the universal creed of the natural heart. Fallen human nature, when under terror, says, Get into a better state by all means; feel better, pray better, do better; become holier, and reform your life and conduct, and God will have mercy upon you! But grace says, Behold, God is my salvation! (Isa 12:2). To give God some equivalent for His mercy, either in the shape of an inward work of sanctification, or of an outward work of reformation, the natural man can comprehend and approve of; but to be justified by faith alone, on the ground of the finished work of Christ, irrespective of both, is quite beyond his comprehension. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men (1 Cor 1:25); for, instead of preaching holiness as a ground of peace with God, we preach Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23), for other foundation can no man lay either for justification or sanctification than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1 Cor 3:11); and, whatever others may do, I am determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor 2:2).

O my Redeemer, who for me wast slain,

Who bringest me forgiveness and release,

Whose death has ransom’d me to God again,

And now my heart can rest in perfect peace!

Still more and more do Thou my soul redeem,

From every bondage set me wholly free;

Though evil oft the mightiest power may seem,

Still make me more than conqueror, Lord, in Thee!

FOOTNOTES:

1. Representers’ Answers to Queries (Marrow of Modern Divinity).

2. Thomas Boston.

3. Ebenezer Erskine.

4. Ralph Erskine.

5. Translation The Lord our Righteousness

6. Some time ago, the Rev. Dr. Winslow of Bath received a letter from a youth, apparently near death, asking him to reply to it in the columns of our periodical, which he did, and the above quotation contains the most important part of his reply. The subjoined are Dr. Winslow’s note to the author, and the youth’s interesting note to Dr. Winslow:

MY DEAR SIR, A few days ago, I received the following note. Will you allow a brief reply to the all-important question it contains, through the columns of your widespread and most useful journal? I write hurriedly, and on a journey, but I will endeavor to make the apostle’s reply to the awakened jailer my model for point and conciseness. And oh may the same Divine Spirit apply the answer with like immediate and saving result!

‘TO THE REV. DR WINSLOW.

‘DEAR SIR, You would greatly oblige a sinner, if you would write a piece for September, and tell him what he must do to prepare to die what is the preparation required by God and when he is fit to die. By your doing so, you will greatly oblige a young person who feels that his time is short in this world. Now, what is justification? and when is a sinner justified?’

7. Works of Thomas Bacon, Born 1510

8. Dr. Owen says, If a man of carnal mind is brought into a large company, he will have much to do; if into a company of Christians, he will feel little interest; if into a smaller company engaged in religious exercises, he will feel less; but if taken into a closet and forced to meditate upon God and eternity, this will be insupportable.

9. Every one who really believes is said to be born of God; and as every true believer is a converted man, it follows that the production of saving faith is equivalent to the work of regeneration Conversion properly consists in a sinner being brought actually, intelligently, and cordially, to close and comply with God’s revealed will on the subject of His salvation. Professor Buchanan, D.D., LL.D.

10. Taken from God’s Way of Peace, by Horatius Bonar.

11. The author refers to his book, The Spirit of Jesus, which is entirely devoted to the elucidation of the work of the Holy Ghost in the conversion of souls.