DISCOURSE IV. 103 ble creatures should be saved from hell, by believing or trusting in grace, when they could never be saved by all their own works; that they should obtain righteousness and acceptance unto eternal life, by a humble penitence and poverty of spirit, depending on the death and righteousness of another, when all their labour and toil, in works of the law, could not make up a righteousness of their own, sufficient to appear before the justice of God ; Christ will not only be glorified in their holiness as saints, but admired and honoured in and by their faith as believers. His blood and his grace shall share all the glory. Therefore it is of faith, and not of works that it might be of grace ; Rom. iv. 15. Yet this saving faith is the spring of shining holiness in every believer. Duties and virtues are not left out of our religion, when faith is brought into it. The graces of the saints join happily with the atonement of Christ, to render that day more illustrious. Fourthly, That a company of such feeble christians should maintain their course towards heaven, through so many thousand obstacles : This shall be another subject of admiration, and yield a further revenue of glory to our Lord Jesus Christ, for he who is their righteousness, is their strength also. Is. xlv. 24, 25. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel glory in that day, as their strength and their salvation. They have broke through all their difficulties, and were able to do all things through Christ strength- ening them ; Phil. iv. 13. Behold that noble army with palms in their hands ; once they were weak warriors, yet they overcame mighty enemies, and have gained the victory and the prize ; enemies arising from earth, and from hell, to tempt, and to accuse them, but they overcame by the blood of the Lamb ; Rev. xii: 7,11. What a divine honour shall it be to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Captain of our salvation, that weak christians should subdue their strong corruptions, and get safe to heaven through a thousand opposi- tions within and without : It is all owing to the grace of Christ, that grace which is all - sufficient for every saint ; 2 Cor. xii. 9. They are made more than conquerors through him that has loved them ; Rom. viii. 37. Then shall the faith, and courage, and patience of the saints have a blessed review ; and it shall be told, before the whole creation, what strife and wrestlings a poor believer has passed through in a dark cottage, a chamber of long sickness, or per- . baps in a dungeon ; how he has there combated with powers of darkness, how he has struggled with huge sorrows, and has borne, and has not fainted, though he has been often in heaviness through manifold temptations. Then shall appear the bright scene which St. Peter represents as the event of sore trials. I. Pet. i. 8, 7. When our faith has been tried in the fire of tribu- lation and is found more precious than gold, it shall shine to the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=