This Section teaches —

1st. That saving faith rests upon the truth of the testimony of God speaking in his word.

2d. That it respects as its object all the contents of God's word, without exception.

3d. That the complex state of mind to which the epithet faith is applied in Scripture varies with the

nature of the particular passage of God's word which is its object.

4th, That the specific act of saving faith which unites us to Christ, and is the sole condition or instrument of justification, involves two essential elements : {a.) Assent to what the Scriptures reveal to us concerning the person, offices and work of Christ; and (6) trust or implicit reliance upon Christ, and upon Christ alone, for all that is involved in a complete salvation.

1st. Saving faith rests upon the truth of the testimony of God speaking in his word. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, having been given by 'inspiration, are in the strictest and most direct sense God's word to us. They are absolutely divine, both as to their infallible truth and supreme authority. Christ when on earth rested his claims to recognition as Messiah upon the testimony borne to him by the Father. John V. 31-37. " He that hath received the testimony (of Christ) hath set to his seal that God is true." John iii. 33. " He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.'' 1 John v. 10. *^ This is the witness of God which he has testified of his Son." 1 John v. 9. The gospel which Paul preached to the Corinthians he calls " the testimony of God." 1 Cor. ii. 1. God corroborated the truths of the apostle's preaching, "bearing them witness both with signs and wonders," etc. Heb. ii. 4. The Holy Ghost bears direct witness to the soul of the believer. Rom. viii. 16 ; Heb. x. 15.

2d. Saving faith receives as true all the contents of God's word, without exception. After we have settled the preliminary questions as to what books belong to the

inspired canon of Scripture, and as to what is the original text of those books, then the whole must be received as equally the word of God, and must in all its parts be accepted with equal faith. The same illumination of the understanding and renewal of the affections which lays the foundation for the soul's acting faith in any one portion of God's testimony, lays the same foundation for its acting faith in every other portion. The whole word of God, therefore, as far as known to be individual, to the exclusion of all traditions, doctrines of men or pretended private revelations, is the object of saving faith.

3d. The complex state of mind to which the epithet faith is applied in Scripture varies with the nature of every particular passage of God's word which i its object. The common quality which is the reason of the application of the same term to all these various states of mind is cordial, realizing assent to the truth presented. But the state of mind which fully realizes the truth of a threatening must, in some respects, be different from that which realizes the truth of a promise. The realization of the truth of God's glory as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ cannot be an experience in all respects the same with the believing recognition of a duty or of the truth of a fact of history.

It was debated largely between the Romanists and the Reformers whether saving faith included trust or not. The true answer is, that trust is an integral and inseparable element of every act of saving faith in which crust is appropriate to the nature of the object believed, it is plain that many of the propositions of Scripture are not the proper objects of trust. In all such cases

faith includes recognition, assent, acquiescenvje, submis* sion, as the case may be. But in all cases in which the nature of the truth believed renders the exercise of trust legitimate, and especially in that specific act of saving faith called justifying faith, which unites to Christ and is the root and organ of the whole spiritual life, trust is certainly an element of the very essence of that state of mind called in Scripture faith. This will be proved under the next head.

4th. That specific act of saving faith which unites to Christ, and is the sole condition and instrument of justification, involves two essential elements.

(1.) Assent to whatever the Scriptures reveal to us as to the person, offices and work of Christ, (a.) The Scriptures expressly say that we are justified by that faith of which Christ is the object. Rom. iii. 22, 25 ; Gal. ii. 16 ; Phil. iii. 9. (6.) Rejection of Christ in Scripture is declared to be the ground of reprobation. John iii. 18, 19 ; viii. 24. Assent includes an intellectual recognition and a cordial embrace of the object at the same time. It is an act of the whole man — intellect, affection and will — embracing the truth. This especial act of faith in Christ, which secures salvation, is constantly paraphrased by such phrases as " coming to Christ," John vi. 35 ; "looking to him,'' Isa. xlv. 22; " receiving him,'' John i. 12 ; " flving to him for refuge," Heb. vi. 18 ; all of which manifestly involve, an active assent to and cordial embrace, as well as an intellectual recognition of the truth.

(2.) The second element included in that act of faith that saves the soul is trust, or implicit reliance upon Christ, and upon Chris alone, for all that is involved

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in a complete salvation, (a.) The single condition of salvation demanded in the Scriptures is that we should "believe m" or "on" Christ Jesus. And salvation is promised absolutely and certainly if this command is obeyed. John vii. 38 ; Acts ix. 42; xvi. 31; Gal. ii. 16. To believe in or on a person implies trust as well as credence. (6.) We are constantly said to be saved "by faith in'' or ''on Christ." Acts xxvi. 18; Gal. iii. 26; 2 Tim. iii. 16 ; Heb. xi. 1. " Faith is the substance of things hoped for." Trust rests upon the foundation upon which expectation is based. Hope reaches forward to the object upon which desire and expectation meet. Hope, therefore, rests upon trust, and trust gives birth to hope, and faith must include trust in order to give reality or substance to the things hoped for. (c.) The same is proved by what are said to be the effects or fruits of faith. By faith the Christian is said to be " persuaded of the promises ;" " to obtain them ;" " to embrace them ;" " to subdue kingdoms ;" " to work righteousness ;" " to stop the mouths of lions." Heb, xi. All this plainly presupposes that faith is not a bare intellectual conviction of the truth of truths revealed in the Scriptures, but that it includes a hearty embrace of and a confident reliance upon Christ, his meritorious work and his gracious promises.

1. The general object of divine faith is the whole Word of God. As faith, in general, is an assent to truth upon testimony, so divine faith is an assent to divine truth upon divine testimony. Saving faith, therefore, includes an assent of the heart to all the truths revealed in the Word of God, whether they relate to the law or to the gospel; and that, not upon the testimony of any man or Church, nor because they appear agreeable to the dictates of natural reason, but on the ground of the truth and authority of God himself, speaking in the Scriptures, and evidencing themselves, by their own distinguishing light and power, to the mind.*

2. The special and personal object of saving faith is the Lord Jesus Christ. To know Christ, and God as manifested in him, is comprehensive of all saving knowledge — a term by which faith is sometimes expressed. — John xvii. 3. Hence, this faith is called " the faith of Jesus Christ," and the scope of the apostle's doctrine is thus described : " Testifying both to the Jews and the Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." " This faith consists in

* Owen's Treatise on the Reason of Faith, and Halybiirton's Essay on ^^th.

believing the testimony of God concerning his Son, and the life that is in him for men. It respects him in his person and whole character, according to the revelation made of him, and according to the measure of knowledge a person has of him as thus revealed, especially as now manifested, and more clearly exhibited, and freely offered in the gospel. It views him in his supreme Deity as ' Immanuel, God with us ;' as vested with all saving offices, so as to bear, in the highest sense, the name Jesus or Saviour, Lord or King, the great High Priest, Messias, or the Christ ; and as exercising all his offices for the benefit of mankind sinners, with whom he entered into near affinity, by the assumption of their nature, that he might be capable of acting the part of a surety in obeying, dying, meriting, and mediating for them." * It will not do to limit the object of saving faith to any one doctrinal proposition — such as, that Jesus is the Son of God — or, that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh — or, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. This, at the utmost, would only be giving credit to a certain doctrine; but saving faith is a believing on the person of Christ, or an appropriating of Christ himself, with all the benefits and blessings included in him.+

3. The principal acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ. Romanists make faith to be nothing more than " a bare naked assent to the truth revealed in the Word." This notion was strenuously opposed by our Reformers, and is renounced in the National Covenant of Scotland, under the name of a " general and doubtsome faith ;" yet, many Protestants, in modern times, represent saving faith as nothing more than a simple assent to the doctrinal truths recorded in Scripture, and as exclusively an act of the understanding. But, although saving faith gives full credit to the whole Word of God, and particularly to the testimony of God concerning his Son Jesus Christ, as has been already stated, yet, its principal acts are " accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ." True faith is the belief of a testimony ; but it must correspond to the nature of the testimony believed. Were the gospel a mere statement of speculative truths, or a record of facts in which we have no personal interest, then, a simple assent of the mind to these truths — the mere crediting of these facts, would con-

* Professor Bruce's Evangelical Discourses, p. 108.

t Cudworth's Aphorisms on the Assurance of Faith. A new edition was published in 1829, with a Recommendation by the late Rev. John Brown of Whitburn, along with two Essays on Faith by American Divines : and they have been recently published along with Treatises on Faith by E. Erskine and Dr Anderson of Anua-ica.

1 50 CONFESSION OF FAITH. [^CHAP. XIV.

stitute the faith of the gospel. But the gospel is not a mere statement of historical facts, or of abstract doctrines respecting the Saviour ; it contains in it a free offer of Christ, and of salvation through him, to sinners of every class, who hear it, for their acceptance. Saving faith, therefore, that it maycorrespond to the testimony believed, must include the cordial acceptance or reception of Christ, as tendered to us in the gospel.

As Christ is exhibited in Scripture under various characters and similitudes, so faith in him is variously denominated. It is expressed by coming to him — by looking unto him — by Jleeing to him for refuge — by eating his flesh and drinking his blood— by receicing him, and by resting upon him. It is to be observed, that the terms employed in our Confession do not denote different acts of faith, but are only different expressions of the same act. Believing on Christ is called a receiving of him, in reference to his being presented to poor sinners, as the gift of God to them ; and it is styled a resting on him, because he is revealed in the gospel as a sure fuundatio)i, on which a sinner may lay the weight of his eternal salvation with the firmest confidence. It is manifest, that all the figurative descriptions of saving faith in Scripture imply a particular application of Christ by the soul, or a trusting in Christ for salvation to one's self in particular; and this is what some have called the appropriation of faith. It is no less evident, that in the phraseology of Scripture, faith is not simply an assent of the understanding, but implies an act of volition, accepting the Saviour and relying on him for salvation. This does not proceed upon any previous knowledge which the sinner has of his election; nor upon any persuasion that Christ died intentionally for him more than for others, for it is impossible to come to the knowledge of these things prior to believing; nor does it proceed upon the persuasion that Christ died equally for all men, and therefore for him in particular ; nor upon the perception of any good qualities in himself to distinguish him from others ; but it proceeds solely upon the free, unlimited offer and promise of the gospel to the chief of sinners.

4. That the true believer receives and rests upon Christ alone for salvation. This distinguishes the true believer from such as rest their hope of salvation on the general mercy of God, without any respect to the mediation of Christ, or upon their own works of righteousness, or upon the righteousness of Christ and their own works conjoined.

5. That the true believer receives and rests upon Christ for a complete salvation. He trusts in Christ for salvation not

only from wrath, but also from sin — not onlj for salvation from the guilt of sin, but also from its pollution and power — not only for happiness hereafter, but also for holiness here. In the language of the Confession, he rests upon Christ " for justification, sanctification, and eternal life;" and that " by virtue of the covenant of grace;" that is, as these blessings are exhibited and secured in that covenant.