Faith No Fancy (4)

There is yet a more subtile though no less dangerous mistake that you should beware of, and that is when faith is confounded with obedience, and is looked on in justification as a piece of new obedience, with love, repentance, and other duties of holiness. So some think they believe because they have some natural awe of God in their minds, with some fear of sin. They perform some duties of religion and walk honestly, as they think according to the rule.

But this is to confound the covenant of works with the covenant of grace, and to make the covenant of works a covenant of grace, only with this difference, that though their obedience, their love, their repentance are not perfect, but defective, yet wherein they are defective, they think there is worth in their faith to make up that want and to supply that defect. And so by faith they think they will obtain the acceptation of their works of obedience, love, and repentance. They look upon their works as pleasing to God, but because they are not perfect, they will believe, or exercise faith to make up their defects.

However, to this the way of grace is quite contrary, which makes the tree first good, and then the fruit. It is warrantable in a believer to draw the evidences of believing from works of holiness, but those found their faith or their hope of heaven on works. The use they make of their faith is to ward off challenges of conscience for the imperfection of their works, and so they make faith procure acceptance of their works, and then expect acceptance of their persons for their works' sake.

Beware of that which you ordinarily call a certain assurance, or a sure knowledge of your salvation, and that all the promises are yours, whereby you think yourselves in no hazard: a hope and assurance of heaven that you can give no ground for, nor proof of; only you think you are sure of pardon of sin and of coming to heaven, and that you are obliged to maintain that groundless hope.

This is not saving faith, for it is a hope of heaven that can give you no right to Christ and His benefits. There must first be a fleeing to Him and a closing with Him before you can have any true and well-grounded hope of heaven; but your hope and confidence is never to question the matter. You are like Laodicea, who thought herself rich and to stand in need of nothing, when she was miserably poor; or like those men who, when God was threatening them with judgment, yet would needs presume to think that they leaned on the Lord.

I think, among all the persons against whom God has indignation, it is in a special manner against those who have this kind of hope, and to whom God discovers the groundlessness of it, and yet they will still stoutly maintain and stand by their hope. It is to these He speaks in Deuteronomy 29:19, who despise and mock God's threatenings and say, “We shall have peace, though we walk in the imagination of our own hearts, and add drunkenness to thirst.” The Lord there pronounces a curse, and to the curse adds an oath, that He will not spare such persons, but will separate them for evil, and cause all the curses of the law to overtake them.

Judge you now what a condition this is for persons to be in: to be believing that all the promises are theirs, and yet, instead of that, to be in the meantime liable to all the curses threatened in the Word of God. It is this that we call presumption, and the hope of the hypocrite will perish. The confidence of such shall be rejected and swept away as a spider's web; it shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors (Job 18:14).

They think that they believe always, and that when they are not troubled nor disquieted, they never want faith, but have a great deal of it; which is, however, but a conjecture which cannot support and uphold them when they come to a strait. When they are more secure, they think they believe very well; and when they are more awakened and disquieted, they think they believe less, and their fancied faith quite ebbs on them. When they hear of any exercise of mind or trouble of conscience in others, they wonder that they will not believe, and all their work is to maintain their deep security and strong delusion. This is then the fourth thing that you should beware of, for it is not saving faith.

And yet, how many are there of this sort, who say they shall have peace, and please themselves with their good hopes, say the Word what it will. Oh! be persuaded that this is nothing else but woeful unbelief and presumption, and therefore we must preach to you the terror and the curse of God, though you cry peace to yourselves. The Lord complains of such persons, saving by the mouth of His prophet Jeremiah, “They have belied the Lord.” He sent His prophets to denounce judgments in the days of Josiah when there was a fair profession of religion and a reformation, yet they would believe and hope that no evil should overtake them.

We therefore exhort you to lay your hand to your heart, and to try narrowly if you have called or accounted any of these to be saving faith, for there are hundreds, nay, thousands that perish under these pretexts, deceiving themselves and deluding others by a faith they were born and brought up with, and the only thing they have to prove their faith by is their groundless hope, and this they will stand by, say to them what you will. But be not deceived, for God will discover you. You think a strong presumption is faith, and that by such a faith you can drink in the promises, but God will make you vomit them up, and you shall be declared void of faith in the great day.

Therefore be more jealous over your faith and seek to have your hold of Christ made sure, which is done when from the belief of your hazard and self-emptiness, and of Christ's fullness, you flee to Him and close with Him to make up all your wants. I would have you to think that faith is neither an easy, nor an insuperably difficult thing, but that it is easy to go wrong, and difficult to go right, and that, without God's special and powerful guidance, you cannot believe nor exercise faith, nor walk in the way of believing in Him and dependence on Him; so that you may be helped to make a right use of Christ and to build upon Him, that you may not slip nor stumble and fall on the stumbling stone laid in Zion, on which so many fall every day, and break themselves to pieces.

If it were not recorded in the infallible Scriptures of truth, we would hardly believe that there could be so much powerful preaching of the most excellent instruments that ever were employed, and yet that there should be so little fruit following on it. Who would believe that Isaiah, so excellent, so sweet, so evangelic a prophet, should have so many sad complaints as he has? That he should have to bring in the Lord as saying, “All the day long have I stretched out My hands to a rebellious people,” and the prophet himself should have cause to say, “Who hath believed our report?” It is, however, a very sad though a very clear truth that there may be much powerful preaching of the gospel, and yet unbelief general among the hearers of it. We have called for faith, but it is a rare thing among the multitude of hearers to find one that believes savingly. And this was not only in Isaiah's days, but in Christ's days and in Paul's days, who repeat the complaint in the very same words.

— to be continued —

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