Chapter 13: True Submission 5. Finally, it requires submission to the terms of the gospel. The terms of the gospel are (1.) Repentance, hearty sorrow for sin, justifying God and taking his part against yourself.
(2.) Faith, perfect trust and confidence towards God, such as leads you without hesitation to throw yourself, body and soul, and all you have and are, into his hand, to do with you as he thinks good.
(3.) Holiness, or disinterested benevolence.
(4.) To receive salvation as a mere matter of pure grace, to which you have no claim on the score of justice.
(5.) To receive Christ as your mediator and advocate, your atoning sacrifice, your ruler and teacher, and in all the offices in which he is presented to you in God's word. In short, you are to be wholly acquiescent in God's appointed way of salvation.
I. You see why there are so many false hopes in the church.
The reason is, that so many persons embrace what they consider the gospel, without yielding obedience to the law. They look at the law with dread, and regard the gospel as a scheme to get away from the law. These tendencies have always been manifested among men. There is a certain class that hold to the gospel and reject the law; and another class that take the law and neglect the gospel. The Antinomians think to get rid of the law altogether. They suppose the gospel rule of life is different from the law; whereas, the truth is, that the rule of life is the same in both, and both require disinterested benevolence. Now, if a person thinks that, under the gospel, he may give up the glory of God as his supreme object, and instead of loving God with all his heart, and soul, and strength, may make his own salvation his supreme object, his hopes are false. He has embraced another gospel which is no gospel at all.
II. The subject shows how we are to meet the common objection, that faith in Christ implies making our own salvation our object or motive.
Answer. What is faith? It is not believing that you shall be saved, but believing God's word concerning his Son. It is no where revealed that you shall be saved. He has revealed the fact that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. What you call faith, is more properly hope. The confident expectation that you shall be saved is an inference from the act of faith; and an inference which you have a right to draw when you are conscious of obeying the law and believing the gospel. That is, when you exercise the feelings required in the law and gospel, you have a right to trust in Christ for your own salvation.
III. It is an error to suppose that despair of mercy is essential to true submission.
This is plain from the fact that, under the gospel, every body knows it is the will of God that every soul should be saved that will exercise disinterested benevolence. Suppose a man