The Fourth Principle Expounded.
Q. What is faith?
A. Faith is a wonderful grace of God, by which a man doth apprehend and apply Christ, and all his benefits unto himself. 1
Q. How doth a man apply Christ unto himself, seeing we are on earth, and Christ in heaven?
A. This applying is done by assurance, when a man is verily persuaded by the Holy Spirit of God's favour towards himself particularly and of the forgiveness of his own sins. 2
Q. How doth God bring men truly to believe in Christ?
A. First, he prepareth their hearts, that they might be capable of faith; and then he worketh faith in them.
Q. How doth God prepare mens hearts?
A. By bruising them, as if one would break an hard stone to powder: and this is done by humbling them. 3
Q. How doth God humble a man?
A. By working in him a sight of his sins, and a sorrow for them.
Q. How is this sight of sin wrought?
A. By the moral law: the sum whereof is the Ten Commandments. 4
Q. What sins may I find in my self by them?
A. Ten.
Q. What is the first?
A. To make something thy God, which is not God: by fearing it, loving it, and so trusting in it more then in the true God. 5
Q. What is the second?
A. To worship false gods, or the true God in a false manner. 6
Q. What is the third?
A. To dishonour God in abusing his titles, words, and works. 7
Q. What is the fourth?
A. To break the Sabbath, in doing the works of their calling and of the flesh; and in leaving undone the works of the spirit. 8
Q. What be the six latter?
A. To do any thing that may hinder thy neighbour's dignity, 9 life, 10 chastity, 11 wealth, 12 good name, 13 though it be but in the secret thoughts and motions of the heart unto which thou givest no liking nor consent. 14
Q. What is sorrow for sin?
A. It is when a man's conscience is touched with a lively feeling of God's displeasure for any of these sins: 15 in such wise, that he utterly despairs of salvation, in regard of anything in himself, acknowledging that he hath deserved shame and confusion eternally. 16
Q. How doth God work this sorrow?
A. By the terrible curse of the law.
Q. What is that?
A. He which breaks but one of the commandments of God, though it be but once in all his lifetime, and that only in one thought, is subject to and in danger of eternal damnation thereby. 17
Q. When men's hearts are thus prepared, how doth God ingraft faith in them?
A. By working certain inward motions in the heart, which are the seeds of faith, out of which it breedeth.
Q. What is the first of them?
A. When a man humbled under the burden of his sins doth acknowledge and feel that he stands in great need of Christ. 18
Q. What is the second?
A. An hungering desire and a longing to be made partaker of Christ and all his merits. 19
Q. What is the third?
A. A flying to the throne of grace from the sentence of the law pricking the conscience. 20
Q. How is it done?
A. By praying, with sending up loud cries for God's favour in Christ, in the pardoning of sin; and with fervent perseverance herein, till the desire of the heart be granted. 21
Q. What followeth after this?
A. God then according to his merciful promise, lets the poor sinner feel the assurance of his love wherewith he loveth him in Christ, which assurance is a lively faith. 22
Q. Are there divers degrees and measures of true faith?
A. Yea. 23
Q. What is the least measure of true faith that any man can have?
A. When a man of an humble spirit, by reason of the littleness of his faith, doth not yet feel the assurance of the forgiveness of his sins, and yet he is persuaded that they are pardonable; and therefore desireth that they should be pardoned, and with his heart prayeth to God to pardon them. 24
Q. How do you know that such a man hath faith?
A. These desires and prayers are testimonies of the Spirit, 25 whose property it is to stir up a longing and a lusting after heavenly things, with sighs and groans for God's favour and mercy in Christ. 26 Now where the Spirit of Christ is, there is Christ dwelling; and where Christ dwelleth, there is true faith, how weak soever it be.
Q. What is the greatest measure of faith?
A. When a man daily increasing in faith comes to be fully persuaded of God's love in Christ towards himself particularly, and of the forgiveness of his own sins. 27
Q. When shall a Christian heart come to this full assurance?
A. Not at the first, but in some continuance of time, when he hath been well practised in repentance; 28 and hath had divers experiences of God's love unto him in Christ: then after them will appear in his heart the fullness of persuasion; which is the ripeness and strength of faith. 29
Q. What benefits doth a man receive by faith in Christ?
A. Hereby he is justified before God, and sanctified. 30
Q. What is this, to be justified before God?
A. It comprehendeth two things: the first, to be cleared from the guiltiness and punishment of sin; the second, to be accepted as perfectly righteous before God. 31
Q. How is a man cleared from the guiltiness and punishment of his sins?
A. By Christ's sufferings and death upon the cross. 32
Q. How is he accepted for righteous before God?
A. By the righteousness of Christ imputed to him. 33
Q. What profit comes by being thus justified?
A. Hereby and by no other means in the world, the believer shall be accepted before God's judgement seat, as worthy of eternal life by the merits of the same righteousness of Christ. 34
Q. Do not good works then make us worthy of eternal life?
A. No: For God, who is perfect righteousness itself, will find in the best works we do more matter of damnation then of salvation: and therefore we must rather condemn ourselves for our good works, than look to be justified before God thereby. 35
Q. How may a man know that he is justified before God?
A. He need not ascend into heaven to search the secret counsel of God: but rather descend into his own heart to search whether he be sanctified or not. 36
Q. What is it to be sanctified?
A. It comprehendeth two things: the first, to be purged from the corruption of his own nature; the second, to be endowed with inward righteousness.
Q. How is the corruption of sin purged?
A. By the merits and power of Christ's death, which being by faith applied is as a corrosive to abate, consume, and weaken the power of all sin. 37
Q. How is a man indued with inherent righteousness?
A. Through the virtue of Christ's resurrection: which being applied by faith, is as a restorative to revive a man that is dead in sin, to newness of life. 38
Q. In what part of man is sanctification wrought?
A. In every part of body and soul. 39
Q. In what time is it wrought?
A. It is begun in this life, in which the faithful receive only the first fruits of the Spirit, and it is not finished before the end of this life. 40
Q. What graces of the Spirit do usually shew themselves in the heart of a man sanctified?
A. The hatred of sin, and the love of righteousness. 41
Q. What proceeds of them?
A. Repentance, which is a settled purpose in the heart, with a careful endeavour to leave all his sins, and to live a Christian life, according to all God's commandments. 42
Q. What goeth with repentance?
A. A continual fighting and struggling against the assaults of a man's own flesh, against the motions of the devil, and the enticements of the world.
Q. What followeth after a man hath gotten the victory in any temptation or affliction?
A. Experience of God's love in Christ, and so increase of peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 43
Q. What followeth if in any temptation he be overcome and through infirmity fall?
A. After a while there will arise a godly sorrow, which is when a man is grieved for no other cause in the world, but for this only, that by his sin he hath displeased God, who hath been unto him a most merciful and loving Father. 44
Q. What sign is there of this sorrow?
A. The true sign of it is this, when a man can be grieved for the very disobedience of God in his evil word or deed, though he should never be punished, and though there were neither heaven nor hell. 45
Q. What follows after this sorrow?
A. Repentance renewed afresh. 46
Q. By what signs will this repentance appear?
A. By seven. 47
- A care to leave the sin into which he is fallen.
- An utter condemning of himself for it, with a craving of pardon.
- A great anger against himself for his carelessness.
- A fear lest he should fall into the same sin again.
- A desire ever after to please God.
- A zeal of the same.
- Revenge upon himself for his former offence.
John 2:2 (?); John 1:12; John 6:35; Galatians 3:7; Colossians 2:12
2 Corinthians 1:21,22; Romans 8:16
Ezekiel 11:19; Hosea 6:1,2
Romans 3:20; Romans 7:7,8
Commandment I
Commandment II
Commandment III
Commandment IV
Commandment V
Commandment VI
Commandment VII
Commandment IX
Commandment X
Commandment X
Acts 2:37,38.
1 Timothy 1:15; Luke 15:21; Ezra 9:6,7
Galatians 3:10
Isaiah 55:1; John 7:37; Luke 1:53
Matthew 5:4
Hebrews 4:6
Luke 15:18,19; Matthew 15:22,23; Acts 8:23
Matthew 7:7; Isaiah 65:24; Job 33:26
Romans 1:15; Luke 17:5;
Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:5
Romans 8:23,26; Galatians 4:6; Matthew 5:5
Romans 8:9; Ephesians 3:17
Romans 8:38,39; Can. 8 6 7
2 Timothy 4:7,8; Psalm 23:1-4,6
Romans 4:20,21.
1 Corinthians 1:30; Acts 15:9; Romans 4:3
Romans 8:33
Colossians 1:22; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:7
2 Corinthians 5:21
Romans 4:17; Revelation 22:17 (?)
Psalm 143:2; Isaiah 64:6; Job 9:3
Romans 8:10 (?); 1 John 3:9
Romans 6:4; 1 Peter 4:1,2;
Romans 6:5,6; Philippians 3:10
1 Thessalonians 5:23
Romans 8:23; 2 Corinthians 5:2,3
Psalm 119:113; Psalm 40:9; Psalm 101:3; Romans 7:22
Psalm 119:57,113
Romans 5:3,4; 1 Corinthians 1:5
2 Corinthians 7:8,9; Matthew 26:75
1 Peter 2:19
2 Corinthians 7:11
2 Corinthians 7:11