SERMON XV.

ON FAITH.

ROMANS X. 10.

"With the heart man believeth unto righteousness."

THE Contrast between the righteousness which is of the law, and the righteousness which is of faith (which is indeed the great subject of the whole Epistle to the Romans), is put forward in no part of that Epistle more forcibly than in the tenth chapter.

"Brethren," says St. Paul in the opening of the chapter, "my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."

Having thus proposed the contrast, he goes on to say, "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth;" that is, "for if their zeal of God had been according to knowledge, they would have known that Christ so fulfils the law, that righteousness by faith in Him is the very object to which the law pointed," as he writes to the Galatians: “Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the Faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith."

St. Paul then proceeds with his subject by an adaptation of the words of Moses. The passage may be thus paraphrased. For Moses describeth the righteousness which was to be obtained by the law in these terms, "that the man which doeth these things shall live by them." But the righteousness which is offered to men through faith in Christ is quite of a different kind, and may be illustrated by another passage from the books of Moses: " Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven? that is, to bring down Christ from above; or, who shall descend into the deep? that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead." Do not suppose that the righteousness now offered to you is such an one as though Christ were to be fetched from heaven, or the grave, to declare your duties or pronounce your forgiveness, -as though, that is, there were difficulty to know the rule of life, or need of mere external absolution

to confer righteousness. No, to use the words of Moses, "the word, (that is the word of faith which we preach) is" to be "very nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thine heart." The righteousness now offered is one to be received by means of faith in the heart, and confession with the lips. It is not either to be earned by obedience to the law, or conveyed by simple sentence of pardon, (as though it were needful to bring Christ to earth to pronounce it :)-the terms of it are faith in the heart, and confession with the lips. " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

It is plain that in this passage St. Paul speaks of faith as a virtue of the mind, in the usual sense of that phrase. He attributes the belief which is unto righteousness, that is, justifying faith, to the heart of man. Just as in the third chapter of Hebrews, he speaks of the "evil heart of unbelief," so here we must understand him to mean, that that faith or belief of which he often speaks in terms so exalted, resides in the heart, that is in the affections and will of man: saying indeed herein only what his great Teacher and ours had continually said before him; for Christ Himself had attributed the want of belief in His disciples to slowness of heart, and

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had made the promise of knowledge of His doctrines to those only who did His will.

It is of this virtue of faith then that I propose, in humble reliance upon God's blessing, to speak. Without entering upon any controverted subjects, I would rather confine myself to such points as seem to offer the greatest practical utility, and endeavour to ascertain what that frame of mind is, what its objects, destination, signs, which under the covenant of grace is brought forward into so prominent a position among those things with which God is well pleased.

It is very observable that the word "faith" which is used in various senses in the New Testament, is currently used among Christians as if it were of the most uniform and undoubted meaning. I do not mean that such confusion is common among theologians, but with ordinary Christians it is quite remarkable how little suspicion there seems to be of various significations of this word in Holy Scripture; or of the impropriety of applying to their own vague and confused notion of faith, every passage of the Bible in which the word faith occurs. When St. Paul says, "Whatever is not of faith is sin," he means by faith an undoubting conscience as though he had said, Whatever is not done with a full inward conviction of its being right, is sin. When again St. Jude exhorts Christians to " contend for the faith once delivered to the

saints," he means by the faith, the system of true doctrine, as we say "the Christian faith." But when St. Paul says that" without faith it is impossible to please God," he means by faith a certain inward virtue of mind, which it is my present purpose to examine. Then again faith and works are often opposed, and people imagine that it is easy to understand in what sense they are to be taken when so opposed. But there are in fact no less than three senses, each quite distinct from the others, in which the opposition is to be understood. First whenever works are used to signify the ceremonial works of the law, the opposition between faith and works is the opposition between Judaism and Christianity, the opposition between being justified, as the Pharisee hoped to be, by tithing mint and cummin, and being justified by the merits of the death of Christ; and faith means that system of truth which proposes "faith the virtue" as the instrument of justification. Secondly faith and works are opposed, and mean, the one mere naked intellectual assent, the other the fruits of holiness and trust in God which ought to follow. Thirdly, faith is taken to mean the trust in God and Christ, the inward hearty reliance upon the promises; and works, the visible external deeds, which necessarily proceed from such reliance. In the first of these three senses St. Paul commonly opposes faith and works; St. James uses the second; the third, which is the most common in