Chapter 24: Whether Faith as Lively and True, or Faith as Continuing to the End, Is the Condition of the Covenant of Grace

These, who in all points as in this, make this new Covenant a Covenant of Works, contend that faith as enduring to the end, must be the condition of the new Covenant. 1. Because the promise of the reward. 2. The reward is given to him that endures to the end. And this faith (say they) is the adequate and complete condition of the Covenant of Grace as full and consummate obedience to the end in degrees and parts.

2. But faith as lively and sincere is the condition of the Covenant, the nature and essence of this faith is to continue to the end, but continuance to the end is an accidental condition of this only essential condition of the Covenant, faith quae, which endures to the end, but not quâ aut quatenus, as it endures to the end is that which saves us and justifies us as the condition of the Covenant. 1. Faith as lively unites us to Christ and justifies whether it be come to the full perfection or not. Otherwise 1. no man should be ingrafted in Christ as branches in the Vine Tree, no man partakers of the Divine nature, no man quickened, but he that dies in final believing: Whereas, (John 5:24) he that believes before his final continuance to the end, ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩, has passed from death to life and shall never come to condemnation. And in this is the difference of the condition of the Covenant of Works, that Adam had no right to life by one or two the most sincere acts and highest in measure, except he continue, ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩ (as the Law says, Deuteronomy 26:27, Galatians 3:10) to the end, otherwise at the first act of obedience perfect in degrees and parts, God was obliged by Covenant (except the Lord should break the first Covenant himself, before man sin, which is blasphemous) to have given him confirming grace and the reward of life; but the condition of the Covenant of Grace is that, He that believes (John 3:36) ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩, is not condemned, indeed is freed from all condemnation (Romans 8:1) and ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩ has life being really united as the member to the head, as the branch to the tree, mystically, as the wife to the husband, legally, as the debtor and the surety becomes one person in Law, the sum one and not two. (1 John 5:11) And this is the witness that ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩ he has given us life eternal, and this is in the Son. 12. He that has the Son has life: He that believes has the Son dwelling in his heart by faith (Ephesians 3:17).

2. Faith, before it come to seed and full harvest brings solid peace and comfort and saves: So Christ to the blind man (Luke 18:42), your faith ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩, has saved you, not a bare miraculous faith, but that which apprehends remission of sins, as he speaks to the woman who did wash his feet with tears (Luke 7:50) and to the paralytic man (Matthew 9:2), seeing their faith, be of good cheer, go in peace, your sins are forgiven. If they be but forgiven conditionally, so they believe to the end, whereas they may fall away. 1. What comfort and good cheer? 2. What peace being justified by faith (Romans 5:1)? 3. What glory in tribulation (Romans 5) have they more than Judas the son of perdition? What Covenant of life and of peace are we in? What difference between our Religion and the Religion of Cicero, Seneca, and of all Pagans, if Christ furnish not to us solid unshaken help and consolation? And what a trembling hope have they that they be, and are to fear they shall be in the condition of Apostate Angels tomorrow? What says then Christ (Matthew 9:22; Mark 5:34; Mark 10:52; Luke 8:58; Luke 5:20, 24; Mark 5:34; Mark 9:24) indeed and much more says the Holy Ghost of our case, even of everlasting consolation (2 Thessalonians 2:16), strong consolation (Hebrews 6:18), all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:4), lively hope (1 Peter 1:4; Hebrews 6:18, 19) than Heathens can say, in fact otherwise not so much, for they promise not so much. 3. Our lively faith is to believe our perseverance in lively faith as promised to us (Jeremiah 32:39, 40; Isaiah 54:10; Isaiah 59:20, 21; John 10:27, 28; John 4:14; 1 Peter 1:3, 4, 5; John 11:26, 27). As we believe life eternal, and that purchased by the merit of Christ's death, the one as well as the other, then faith as final cannot be the condition; And who can think that God commands faith in God Immanuel in the Covenant of Works? But faith in God Immanuel to the end is not commanded in the Covenant of Works, but only in the Covenant of Grace. 4. Faith justifies and saves as sincere, be it great or small: but if it justify not and save not, but as it endures to the end, then no man is completely justified and saved and united to Christ, until he die.

Since faith (as all other graces in a child of God) is imperfect and still growing (2 Peter 3:18), and we are to pray, Lord increase our faith, none shall be justified and saved, but he that has the greatest faith, if faith only, which endures to the end, be the condition of the covenant, and such a faith as grows and endures to the end. For take one who for twenty years believes, the first two years he being united to Christ, has right to Christ (John 15:1-5, John 17:21-22, John 14:16, John 16:7-8, 13, John 4:14, John 7:37-39) — he shall not be judged, not condemned, has passed from death to life, shall never die (John 3:36, 1 John 5:11-12, John 4:24, John 11:25-26) — then should he die at the end of the first year of his believing, by the Scripture, he must be saved, else he must be damned, who yet died in true faith and yet never fell away, which were strange. But by this opinion either the remnant sound believing should be no condition of justification and salvation, because the man is justified and saved without it, and the faith of one or two years gave him right to Christ and saved him? Therefore the remnant faith is not a condition of the covenant, but a persevering by grace promised and a persevering in that faith, as also by their way who make persevering faith the only condition of the covenant of grace. First, faith and works are confounded: whereas to be saved by faith is to be saved before, and to be justified before we can do good works, and the right or title to righteousness and salvation, coming only from the price and redemption that is in Jesus Christ, is not more or less, and grows no more than the worth of the ransom of the blood called the blood of God (Acts 20:28) does grow, and it is to be justified by grace and by faith, and then works come in as the fruit of our justification and salvation (Ephesians 2) — you are not saved by works, lest any man should boast, in a righteousness of his own, coming from no merit of Christ, which buys determining grace, and indeclinably leads and bows the will. Otherwise we may boast — that is, glory in the Lord, who works all our works for us (Psalm 34:2, Isaiah 41:16, Isaiah 26:12). The salvation and righteousness is the gift of God. What then shall be the room of works? He answers, No room at all as causes of justification and salvation, by an excellent antanaclasis, as learned Trochrig: for he answers, We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. Then by grace we have the full right to righteousness and salvation by the ransom of blood, which is Christ's. Papists and Arminians dare not bring in evangelistic works or faith as an evangelistic work here, though they be too bold. Second, being once made the creation of God in Christ, and having obtained right by the blood of Christ to salvation, we walk by his grace in good works as leading us to the possession of the purchased inheritance. Third, the authors of this stand for the apostasy of the saints, and they cannot avoid it who make this final faith — that takes in its essence good works as the soul of it or charity (as Papists say) as the form of it — the only condition of the covenant.

Question: But is not eternal life given and promised only to faith which continues to the end? Answer: Faith is considered two ways: in its nature, and second, in its duration and existence. As to the former, saving faith is of that nature that it is apt to endure, it has a sort of immortality, so the promise in titulo and jure is made to that faith only which is of that nature that it must endure to the end, and the promise of life and remission is not made to a saving faith under the accident of enduring to the end, or for the years — suppose thirty or forty years, or eight hundred years, or above, that Adam or the Patriarchs lived in the state of believing — for a faith of some hours only shall save the repenting thief as well as a faith of many years. And second, eternal life in the possession is promised and given only to the faith that continues to the end, not because of the duration because a longer enduring faith has merit, but that is by accident, in regard of the right to life and because God has commanded persevering in faith, life is given only in possession to such a faith as endures, but we cannot say that the accidental endurance and existence of faith for so many years does save and justify, as the living so many years makes a child an heir to a great estate, for his being born the eldest son makes him his father's heir.