SERMON III.

THE INESTIMABLE VALUE OF FAITH IN THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD AND OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.

2 Peter, i. 1.

Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

THIS Epistle was written to christians, with a view to confirm them in the faith, and to build them up in the truth as it is in Jesus. The foundation of their character is set forth in this verse, and it is very descriptive of a christian spirit. He is a true christian, who, like those to whom St. Peter writes, has obtained the same precious faith which the apostles had, (for in this there is not the least difference between an apostle and the meanest real believer) the same precious faith, I say, in "the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."

εν

I am aware that the text in our translation is rendered, "faith through the righteousness;" but the Greek is ev in the righteousness; and as no doubt can be made of this, I shall constantly prefer this rendering, though it is certain that both renderings will run up into the same meaning. If our translation has in this, and a very few other places, deviated

a little from the original, the consequences are of no importance. The translation is, in general, as faithful, I apprehend, as can be expected from human infirmity; and blessed be God! "the righteousness of God and our Saviour," received by "precious faith," is a truth conveyed through the scriptures, and is, together with all its connections and consequences, too well established, to be at all affected by verbal criticisms on Greek particles.

A chrristian then, according to St. Peter, is one who has "obtained precious faith in the righteousness of our Saviour Jesus Christ." What a christian then was, he is now. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." The Saviour is the same, and a true faith in him is still the same. There will arise then three distinct questions, which will require to be distinctly handled. I will briefly speak to each.

1st. What is the righteousness of God and our Saviour here spoken of. 2d. What it is to have precious faith in it. 3d. Whence this precious faith is to be obtained. Nothing will need to be explained but these three things, in order to take in all that was meant by the apostle when he tells us, that a christian is one who has obtained precious faith in the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

1st. The righteousness here meant deserves to be called the righteousness of God, because he who performed it for believers is God, and was manifest in the flesh. In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, saith the apostle. All men are by nature under the covenant of works,

which requires perfect obedience. By guilt, both original and actual, every soul of man is cut off from any pretension to the divine favour on the footing of this covenant, whose terms Moses thus describes: "The man which doeth those things shall live by them." There is but another covenant by which guilty men can live, and that is the covenant of grace; and "if by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace, otherwise work is no more work*." So that upon the whole there is no place found for a middle covenant; a way of acceptance made up of man's doings, and Christ's put together. Be they blended as they will, the word of God allows no such ways, and all whom death finds thus depending, will be tried according to the covenant of works, and by it will be condemned.

Every man of this congregation, whenever death seizes him, will be tried either by the covenant of works, which requires perfect obedience, and for want of that obedience be sentenced to perish; or else by the covenant of grace, which will declare him pardoned, and eternally accepted of God. This all-important benefit of the covenant of grace results from the righteousness which it gives the believer, and not from any works of righteousness that he has done. For "blessed is the man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works." But it is a righteousness perfectly adequate to the demands of the law, being the righteousness of Jesus, who "is the end of the law for righteousness to every Rom. xi. 6.

"The

one that believeth." Whatever the law requires or threatens; whatever it orders or inflicts; the believer depends upon Jesus alone to fulfil its demands, and to save him from its curse. He dares not undertake one jot of the matter; any more since his conversion than before. If he allows himself in hope from his own doings, he changes his plea for life; "he is of the works of the law, and is under a curse." But while he trusts in the Saviour as surety to his servant for good, HE, the surety of the better covenant, will never fail him. mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, nor shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." In brief, then, both a deliverance from the curse, and a right and title to life eternal, is granted to the believer through what the Lord Jesus did and suffered in the days of his flesh, beginning with his incarnation, and ending with his resurrection; and all this becomes the believer's own by imputation.

Enough has been said to show what is meant by "the righteousness of God and our Saviour." Should any

think this strange, and very different from what man would naturally imagine, it may be granted, without affecting the credibility of the gospel report. We may well suppose the way of acceptance before God would be widely different from what man would naturally imagine. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." The fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans explains to you whose this righteousness is. The tenth chapter

explains the doctrine of the two covenants, and in these two chapters all I have said may be found in as express words as you can well desire. Let us hear the apostle himself, in the third chapter of his Epistle to the Philippians, express his own dependance for salvation. Though touching the righteousness which is in the law, he had been blameless, he suffered the loss of all things, and counted them but dung, that he might win Christ, and be found in him, "not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."

The next question is, "What is that precious faith by which a man makes this righteousness his own?" We have seen that if men ever be accounted righteous in God's view, it must be by a righteousness not their own. The righteousness of Christ must be pleaded before God, and by this alone can they be accepted at last. But still the question recurs, how shall we obtain it? To the distressed, burdened, repenting sinner, who would gladly possess this righteousness, and who cannot rest without the assured knowledge of it, to such an one, I say, (those who are otherwise minded will not regard it) a very ample direction is given by the same apostle. Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven, that is to bring down Christ, or who shall descend into the deep, that is to bring up Christ again from the dead." Give not way to such distrustful thoughts: there needs not any thing new to be done by Christ for you: He has come down from heaven; he has gone through the work of performing a righteousness for you, finished by his resurrection.