Ye are saved through faith.
1.NOTHING can be more intricate, complex, and hard to be understood, than religion as it has been often described. And this is not only true concerning the religion of the Heathens, even many of the wisest of them, but concerning the religion of those also, who were, in some sense, Christians: yea, and men of great name in the Christian world, men who seemed to be pillars thereof. Yet how easy to be understood, how plain and simple a thing is the genuine religion of Jesus Christ! Provided only, that we take it in its native form, just as it is described in the oracles of God. It is exactly suited by the wise Creator and Governor of the world, to the weak understanding, and narrow capacity, of man in his present state. How observable is this, both with regard to the end it proposes, and the means to attain that end! The end is, in one word salvation: the means to attain it faith.
2. It is easily discerned, that these two little words, I mean faith and salvation, include the substance of all the bible, the marrow, as it were, of the whole scripture. So much the more should we take all possible care, to avoid all mistake concerning them, and to form a true and accurate judgment concerning both the one and the other.
3. Let us then seriously enquire
I. What is salvation?
II. What is that faith whereby we are saved, and
III. How we are saved by it?
I. 1. And, first, let us enquire, What is salvation? The salvation which is here spoken of, is not what is frequently understood by that word, the going to heaven, eternal happiness. It is not the soul’s going to paradise, termed by our Lord, Abraham’s bosom. It is not a blessing which lies on the other side death, or (as we usually speak) in the other world. The very words of the text itself, put this beyond all question. Ye are saved. It is not something at a distance: it is a present thing; a blessing, which through the free mercy of God, ye are now in possession of. Nay, the words may be rendered, and that with equal propriety, Ye have been saved. So that the salvation which is here spoken of, might be extended to the entire work of God, from the first dawning of grace in the soul, ’till it is consummated in glory.
2. If we take this in its utmost extent, it will include all that is wrought in the soul, by what is frequently termed, natural conscience, but more properly, preventing grace: all the drawings of the Father: the desires after God, which, if we yield to them, increase more and more: all that light, wherewith the Son of God inlighteneth every one that cometh into the world, shewing every man, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God: all the convictions which his Spirit, from time to time, works in every child of man. Although, it is true, the generality of men stifle them as soon as possible; and after awhile forget, or at least deny, that ever they had them at all.
3. But we are at present concerned only with that salvation, which the apostle is directly speaking of. And this consists of two general parts, justification and sanctification.