Chapter II
That all the faculties and powers in man do not afford him abilities to believe.
That all human wisdom is so far from promoting faith, that it sets itself against it.
J3y grace ye are saved through faith and that not of yourselves : it is the
gift of God. EPH. II. 8.
I shall proceed on still in opening of that faith which saveth us, of that
faith which justifieth us, and ceaseth not till it hath put us into the hands of Christ. I shall now proceed farther to shew you the greatness of it in
respect of the working of it in our hearts, and the disproportion that is between our hearts in which it is wrought, and this grace itself. I will shew how hardly it is attained unto, that it is fetched out of the rocks (as I may so speak), by an almighty power. And to that end I have chosen
this text, and especially this particle here, and that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God ; which I intend not so much to discourse of by way of
CHAP. II.] OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 491
exposition, for that I have done before,* as to lay open the thing to you in
a common-place way ; only in general take the scope of the apostle before in
this chapter. His scope is to magnify the free grace of God, as the sole
author of our salvation, which he magnifies in two respects
1. By shewing the misery that a man lay in when God first set his heart
upon him, dead in trespasses and sins, deserving a thousand deaths,
* children of wrath, &c., vers. 1, 2, 3.
2. By laying open the way of God s bringing us unto salvation ; and he
tells us this, that seeing free grace was the contriver of our salvation, and
its end was to magnify itself, therefore, it having the making of its own
laws, it would be sure to order our salvation so, that though of necessity
something was to be wrought in us, or we could not be saved, yet it would
pitch upon such things as should have as little an ingredient into our sal
vation as possibly the thing itself would bear : For by grace ye are saved,
saith he, through faith : and that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God ; not of works, &c. There are but two things required of us, faith and works. The apostle
puts a difference betwixt these two clearly ; and he tells us, that faith is
taken up into commission, as it were, when works are not : By grace ye
are saved through faith, not of works ; no, by no means. Though works
are as much required as faith, yet God doth by no means own them, doth
not so much as look upon them in the matter of salvation. For indeed
faith is that grace that doth so glorify God and his free grace, ^ that he is
not jealous, as it were, to put it into commission even with himself and
with Jesus Christ. But now, when God had therefore required of us as
little as could be in the matter of salvation, when he had required only that we should know this grace of his, and lay hold upon it (without doing of
which, his grace would be lost), and that in laying hold upon it, faith should
give all the glory unto free grace, here man might step in and say, I have
faith in myself, or I contribute something to the getting of faith, and to the
attaining thereof. No, saith the apostle ; we will cut you short there, that
still free grace may be magnified. It is true ye are saved through faith,
but that faith is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. This now is enough for the opening of the words, and shewing you the
apostle s scope. The thing then that at this time I intend to discourse of
is tins, to manifest unto you that saving faith is not of yourselves. That
is my theme, put what title you will upon it : to shew you, I say, that there
is nothing in yourselves that contributeth to the working of faith in you ; and in doing of this I have this aim, namely, that when you see that all in
yourselves, or all that you can do, can no way help you to the attainment
of faith, you may come to understand both the several false ways that men
do take in the matter of believing, and also may the more clearly see, in
the negative, what the right way of believing is, and what the nature of
justifying faith is ; and likewise, that by seeing your inability to attain it,
you may come to prize it the more, and that you may be emptied of your
selves, not only in respect of the grace you believe on (for you believe only on free grace), but in respect of this also, that you must come to free grace
itself even to work this faith, to believe upon it. For what can lay a man
more low in himself than this, that when he sees himself lost, and that God
hath provided a remedy, and requires nothing but faith, honest faith, faith
ful faith, as I use to call it, that yet the man of himself is unable to attain
to this faith ? And further, I have also this end in it, that you that have
* In his exposition on Eph. ii. in Vol. I. of his works. [Vol. II. of this edition.
ED.]
OF THE OBJECT AND ACTS [PART III. BOOK II.
your hearts taken off by God, and have been taught and led in the right way of believing, and enabled to do it, may be thankful to God, and go on in a way of dependence upon him for the perfecting of the work of faith in you, for every storey, every garnish in this building, as well as the founda
tion, is not of yourselves. And likewise further, that those that think that faith is so easy to be had, may indeed be convinced that they have no faith :
faith, saith he, it is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. I shall not go about to shew you, in the general, the greatness of the work of conver
sion, and that that is not of a man s self, and how that to change the heart, and to create new faculties, to turn a man from darkness to light, and from Satan to God, and the like, is a great work, and requires an almighty power. No ; I shall keep strictly to the point of believing, and in that not speak so much of the habit of faith, as of bringing the soul to the acts of faith, clearly and plainly to close with Jesus Christ, and to trust upon free grace, and in nothing in a man s self. I shall particularly demonstrate these two things : 1st. That all that is in man, or all that is from man, can no way help him unto this faith. Yea, 2d. That all that is in man, and all that is from man, is against it. And
therefore, certainly faith is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God.
(1.) I shall only premise this in the general, which I will but briefly touch upon, that if we take pure nature, that is, nature in innocency, in Adam afore he fell, it was far above it to believe those things which we do now believe. I will not stand to dispute that point, whether Adam, yea or nay, had that principle of faith we have. Only this is what I say, that if Adam had the same principle of faith that we have, yet to believe those
things which, when we believe to salvation, we do believe, was infinitely, if not above the proportion of his faith, yet above what it was put to believe. If the wheels be the same, yet there is a new spring put in, which doth turn all the wheels, and the stream and course of them, another way. And that is, whereas Adam sought salvation from God by doing, and by obedi ence of the faith he had, which indeed sets all the wheels in him a-going, here comes a new spring into the heart, which turns all the wheels quite another way, and
^ sets the heart awork to seek salvation out of itself, in another. There is a new instinct, a new genius therefore, carrying the heart unto another, unto Christ, to be saved, differing from what the genius, and spring, and instinct of Adam s faith carried him unto. The truth is, the law of faith (as the expression is in Rom. iii. 23) which is written in our hearts, is differing from that law of works that was in his heart, and was written there. So that I say, suppose that he had a principle of faith such as we have, yet he was never put to believe that which we are ; yea, certainly it was far above the proportion of it so to do. I shall but give you an instance or two.
1. He believed that God made him, and that God made the world (I will not dispute whether his faith might be resolved into sanctified reason or
no). It was an easy thing for him to believe also this, that God, when he made him, had a consultation, expressed in Gen. i. 26, Let us make man, and let us make a world. But was he put upon it to believe that that God who made the world would himself be made man ? If he had the same
principle of faith we have, yet I believe it was so dim as it could hardly have seen so far without new spectacles, but it would have stretched his
eye-strings, have put his eyes to it, to have discerned this, even as it puts the angels necks to it, as Peter speaks, 1 Pet. i. 12, to stoop down to behold this.
2. Adam believed that the soul that sinned should die, and that on that
CHAP. II.] OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 493
day he did eat of the forbidden fruit he should begin to die. There was reason for him to believe this, because he found that by doing the will of God he lived ; therefore he might very well on the contrary believe, that if he transgressed the will of God, he must die ; and yet you see how easy his faith in this thing was overthrown. The devil came with a suggestion of a doubt, Gen. iii. 2 : Yea, hath God said that you shall die the death
that day you eat ? And how easily did the tempter hereby prevail against his faith ! But what if God had said to Adam, that God himself shall die, and that God himself should be made sin that knew no sin, and be made a curse ! If such a thing as this should have been propounded to his faith, and if the devil had come with such a suggestion, Yea, hath God said ? he would have put his faith to it.
3. For Adam to believe that whilst he pleased God in all things, he should continue in his favour, and should be justified in so doing, it was
easy ; why ? Because he had a principle of conscience in him, which was
still to give him peace by doing, and to give a testimony of the favour of God towards him. He had a principle adequate to this in his own bosom, and it was natural unto him, for he had the notion of the remunerative
justice of God, whereof he had the image also in his own bosom, that might
assure him of it. But to come to believe that God will justify the ungodly, and to apprehend myself to be ungodly, and then to believe that God
will justify me, and to believe that God will and doth account an
ungodly person as righteous in his sight, as all the angels in heaven
are, in point of justification, this would have posed, have non-plussed Adam s faith. And further, when that ungodly person, though justified
perfectly, should continue still imperfectly holy, and not have a dram
of power and ability in himself to please God, but he must turn himself out of doors, go and live in another, must fetch a principle of life and grace from Christ, as Christ tells us that we must do: John xv. 5, Without me ye can do nothing ; and as the apostle s faith was, Gal. ii. 20,
* I now
live ; I live by the faith of the Son of God ; and it is not I, but Christ that
liveth in me, all these would have been parables, solecisms in Adam s
opinion. Faith, therefore, by which we are saved, may well be said not
to be of ourselves, for it is indeed above this pure nature, this pure self.
(2.) But besides, a second consideration in the general about it, may be
this. If Adam had power to believe all these things, which I will not dis
pute nor utterly deny, yet now it is above self, for he utterly lost it, and we all have lost it, and so lost it, that of all things else which we are able
to do, we are weakened in the point of believing. Besides the general rea son which is common to the loss of all grace else (viz., if that faith had been a part of the image of God, the whole being lost, it had also been lost with the rest), I say, besides that general reason, there is this special one
to evince this, that in losing that faith he had, we are utterly disenabled of
ourselves to believe. For, do but consider, where was it that the tempta tion entered in ? Certainly it was in a way of unbelief. We will not dis
pute whether that faith he had might be resolved into spiritual reason or
no. Yet a faith it might be called, and so answerably his first sin may be
called unbelief. Yea, hath God said ? saith the devil to Eve ; and at
that she staggered, became dizzy, reeled and fell, and fell upon that arm, and broke it all to pieces. If a man be killed with a shot in his eye, we know that shot piercing the eye, and carrying that away with it, kills the whole man ; and the man being killed, it must be an almighty power that must go to the raising of that man presently again ; but now it were a far
ther thing to raise that eye, beyond and besides raising the whole man,
494 OF THE OBJECT AND ACTS [PART III. BOOK II.
because the whole body remains, but this eye must be made anew ; so it is here. In Bom. xi. 32, we are said (and it is an emphatical expression), both Jew and Gentile, to be shut all up together in unbelief (so you have
it in your margins), that God might have mercy upon all. Do but mark what he compares unbelief unto (that I may fit it to that thing we have in
hand, namely, that in the matter of believing we are of all the rest most
disenabled), he compares it to a prison or bonds. Suppose now that a man had life in him, yet if he be shut up, if he be manacled in fetters, as
likewise the word signifies, he is utterly disenabled. And it imports first, that God in a special manner hath shut up all unbelief. Other sins (if I may so speak) are they for which God imprisons men ; but to the end they may be surely imprisoned, he makes unbelief the jailor, and we are all as
it were shut up in a dungeon, with a door of unbelief fast locked upon us. Therefore now the apostle makes the greatness of the mercy of God to lie
in giving faith, as appears by the context ; God, saith he, hath shut them
up altogether in unbelief, over and above their other sins, that when they were all thus cock-sure the prisoners of death, he might have mercy upon them. In Gal. iii. 22, you have the like phrase
* The scripture, saith he
there, hath concluded all under sin (the word is a compound, GwexXtrttv, of the same root xXs/w), hath shut up all under sin. There are, as I may so speak, outward prisons of all a man s sins else in which he is shut ; but
in Rom. xi. he makes unbelief to be, as it were, the inner prison. So that God now shews a farther mercy in giving of faith. And notwithstanding
all a man s sins, the promises which are by faith in Jesus Christ given to them that believe (as it follows there in Gal. iii. 22), may come and knock
at the prison-door, and tell this poor man, We have broke up all your other
prisondoors, and have passed through all those prisons, and if now you will but believe, do but come out of this dungeon you are in, and you shall be delivered. Alas ! saith the poor soul, though all the other prisondoors be set open, and there be a free access unto grace, notwithstanding all my
sinfulness, yet I cannot believe. No more indeed he cannot, for he is shut
up under unbelief. Therefore, now what saith the text in Gal. iii. 22 ? The promise is given to them that believe ; and as the promise is given to them that believe, so Eph. ii. 8 tells us, that faith is the gift of God :
for a man being shut up under unbelief, locked up in that inner prison, the
promises may come and knock a thousand years at the prison-doors, and
* open a door of faith unto him. So that we are in a special manner in this cor
all to no purpose, unless God, as the expression is, Acts xiv. 27,
rupt estate shut up under unbelief, over and above all the loss we sustained
by Adam. But these are yet but general demonstrations. I shall now come to the particulars, and by the grace of Christ manifest this to you.
1 . That there is nothing in a man (in the condition we lie in by nature) that can help forward, or is any way conducing to the work of saving faith
in the heart ; and that unless God come by an almighty power to work it, he can never believe. And,
2. That all that is in a man, and all that comes from him, duties or endea
vours, or what else you will, are all against it. To make manifest the first
of these, I shall go over all that is in you, take you all in pieces, your understanding, your will, your affections, your conscience, and shew you in all these particulars that faith is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
1st. I will begin with the understanding. All the parts of wit and of wisdom that all the wise men of the world have had since the creation, or shall have to the end of the world, if they had met in any one man s
heart or head, could not help him in the least to believe on Christ in a
CHAP. II.] OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 495
saving manner. The thing is demonstrable abundantly. What says the
* That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of
apostle ? 1 Cor. ii. 5,
men, but in the power of God. It cuts the throat of a man s free will
directly. Therefore he tells us in ver. 6-8, that the wisdom of the princes of this world came to nothing as to the matter of believing. Nay, in
1 Cor. i. 18, 19, he tells us, and he prosecuteth the same all along almost
to the end of the third chapter, that God had a design by setting up faith
in the hearts of his people to save them, thereby to confound the wisdom
* The preaching of the cross, saith he,
of all the wise men in the world :
is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it
is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the*
wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. And ver. 21, After that the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. This poor thing faith, to save men by, he sets up as a principle in the hearts of his people who
are saved, to confound the proud principle of wisdom, parts, wit, and
understanding, that the wise men of the world boast themselves so much
of. And as God in man s redemption had an eye to confound the devil, as appears by the curse in Genesis, so he chooseth out that which is the most excellent thing in man, as that which in the way of saving man he would most confound. I will do it, saith he, by the foolishest object, Christ crucified ; by the foolishest instrument, preaching ; and by the
foolishest means within a man, mere faith ; and by this I will accomplish that good and salvation which all the wise men in the world by their wisdom shall never attain. He doth not say, he will confound the wise men, for he saved many wise men not many wise men indeed, so ver. 26, in comparison of the other, but some wise men therefore he says not that he will confound the wise men of the world, but the wisdom, in the
abstract ; for they must lay their wisdom aside when they come to believe, and become fools. The apostle there useth two or three words very
observable.^ In the 19th verse he saith, that God reprobateth, maketh no. use of the wisdom of the world in point of salvation. And ver. 20, he
saith that God hath made it foolish, he hath put a scorn, an affront upon
it ; and he shews that wise men are the greatest fools in the world, whilst
poor souls scramble up to heaven by believing.
And then again, if you will know the reason why God doth it, and the reason
likewise why wisdom in a man cannot attain to it ; the reason why God doth
it is, that he may confound that which is in man his chiefest excellency, as wisdom is, and that it may be in his power (mark it) to save whom he will, and that it might be in his power only to raise men up to what degrees of
grace and faith, and so of glory to come, he pleaseth. And this he doth whilst he makes no use at all of wisdom in this point, but makes use of
faith. Why ? Because he can make the foolishest people that are, believe, as much as the wisest men in the world. Nay, he can raise up a principle of faith unto an higher degree in a simple man, if he pleaseth, than the wisest and learnedst man in the world can attain to by all notional learning. He therefore pitched upon this grace of faith to confound the wisdom that
is in man, so that all his parts and wisdom cannot help him one whit. This might be insisted upon largely, but it needs not.
And not only doth the natural wisdom in man fall short in it, but it is
in itself a hindrance to it.
1. For reason, which is also joined with wisdom, is utterly against the way of faith. I thought, saith he in Ps. Ixxiii. 16, to comprehend this ; he thought to do it by his own wisdom, and that thought spoiled him.
496 OF THE OBJECT AND ACTS [PART III. BOOK II.
So saith wisdom, for it is a puffed up principle, I think by my own brains and wit to attain this ; which a foolish soul cannot do. Pride, of all things
* The just shall live by faith (saith he
else, is most opposite unto faith :
in Hab. ii. 4), and he opposeth living by faith to him whose heart is lifted
up in him ; and wisdom and knowledge pufieth up, as the apostle saith in
1 Cor. viii. 1. It is therefore in itself the greatest enemy unto faith. When
the wisest man in the world comes to see his natural condition, and comes
to believe, it lays that man as low as the poorest and simplest creature in
the world : I would not care (says he) if I were a fool, if of a king I were
a beggar, so I had but one dram of faith to interest me in Jesus Christ. So that now he that is a rich man, when he conies to believe, he rejoiceth,
as James saith, that he is brought low, &c.
2. And then again, reason, which is the form that constituteth man as
he is man, and is the highest thing in man till faith conies, is utterly against
it. For when faith comes, it deposeth reason, which before ruled as king,
it subdueth it, even as reason itself subdueth sense. Reason therefore
riseth up against it ; for when reason comes to be put from its kingly power and regency, which it hath retained in a man all his days, when a stranger
shall come, and tell reason of strange things in another world, which it
never heard of, never took in before, and upon the news of this, though it
sees not one jot of reason in it, yet it must lay itself down at the foot of
this stranger faith, and receive the law at his mouth ; reason, that hath
been the supreme principle, and the king and dominator in the heart of
man, will never do this, but it will stir and raise up all the force it can
against it to resist it. When faith shall come and say, I will have all these
counsellors of yours, all your carnal reasonings, put away from you, reason
flies upon the height still, still consults with flesh and blood, and will
never yield of itself. In Bom. iv., when Abraham came to believe, reason
would have been putting in many objections. Do but consider your body,
being now dead (saith reason), and consider the deadness of Sarah s womb.
But what saith the text ? Abraham being not weak in faith, h^ considered
not his own body being now dead, when he was about an hundred years
old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah s womb : he staggered not at the
promise of God through unbelief ; but was strong in faith, giving glory to
God, Rom. iv. 19, 20. He gave himself up unto faith.
3. And, thirdly, the more and stronger reason a man hath in him, when
he comes to believe, he will find the harder pull of it, and have the stronger
objections. In men that are in distress of conscience, the larger their
knowledge is, the deeper is their distress ; because the more knowledge a man hath, the more arguments he finds out against himself ; and all the
reason a man hath will but serve to make his indictment the fuller against
himself, and enable him the better to dispute, and the more shrewdly to
argue against himself. As Spira, being a man of a strong reason, you know how he reasoned against himself, to the amazement of all men.
4. Carnal reason (if you would know how it is a hindrance) hinders
both before faith and after. Before faith it is an hindrance, for you will
never believe till you see your natural condition. Now what is it that
hinders men from "seeing that ? All men are ready to acknowledge them
selves sinners, but they will not acknowledge themselves to be lost and
undone. Why, carnal reason useth all the strength it hath to build up
high towers, and plausible shifts and pretences to make a man think he is
in a good condition. All the reason a man hath is mainly exercised in
maintaining the dispute of this against his conscience, or the grumbling in
his heart about the goodness of his estate. Again, on the other side, when
CHAP. III.] OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 497
once a man comes to be humbled, and then should come to believe, all this reason turns head again, and useth as much strength of objection against himself, why he should not have mercy, and tells him he must have this and this qualification before he comes to Jesus Christ. I say it useth as much strength in this case too, and turns the weapons it used afore quite another way. And let me tell you this, never any man comes to believe, if he will go the way of reason, while he stands considering his dead soul ; as Abraham, if he had considered his own dead body, had never believed. The self-flattery that is in every man, while he is in his natural estate, is the general of all the forces of reason in him, it leads on an army of reasons to fight for this, that he is in a good estate ; and though his conscience and the word of God tell him the contrary, yet he will maintain this stiffly ; for he must lose such an opinion of himself if ever selfflattery should yield to the contrary. Now when God hath killed this general self-flattery, and then faith comes to lead up all the forces in a man too, then doth unbelief, then doth despair come and turn all the same forces another way. So that there is as much to do, and more, yea, infinitely more, to raise men up to bottom their hearts in a way of faith, and rightly to rest upon Christ and free grace, and to have peace with God, being justified by faith, than to shew them their natural condition. You see now that wisdom and reason in man conduceth nothing to believing, but that it is all against it.