A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian EthicsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
Christ himself teacheth us to distinguish between faith in God, (as
God,) and faith in himself (as Mediator): John xiv. 1, "Let not your
heart be troubled: ye believe in God;" (or, believe ye in God?)
"believe also in me." These set together are the sufficient cure of a
troubled heart.[84] It is not faith in God as God, but faith in Christ
as Mediator, that I am now to speak of; and that not as it is
inherent in the understanding, but as it is operative on the heart
and in the life: and this is not the smallest part of the life of
faith, by which the just are said to live. Every true christian must
in his measure be able to say, with Paul, Gal. ii. 20, "I am crucified
with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the
Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." The pure Godhead
is the beginning and the end of all; but Christ is "the image of the
invisible God, the first-born of every creature; and by him all things
were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and
invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities,
or powers, all things were created by him and for him: and he is
before all things, and by him all things do consist. And he is the
head of the body, the church; who is the beginning, the first-born
from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence,"
Col. i. 16-19. "In him it is that we who were sometime far off, are
made nigh, even by his blood: for he is our peace, who hath reconciled
both Jew and gentile unto God in one body by the cross, having slain
the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace to them that were far
off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have an
access by one Spirit unto the Father: so that now we are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of
the household of God," Eph. ii. 13, 14, 16-19. "In him" it is that "we
have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him," Eph.
iii. 12. "He is the way, the truth, and the life: and no man cometh to
the Father, but by him," John xiv. 6. It is "by the blood of Jesus
that we have boldness" (and liberty) "to enter into the holiest: by a
new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail,
that is to say, his flesh." Because "we have so great a Priest over
the house of God, we may draw near with a true heart, in full
assurance of faith," &c. Heb. x. 19-22. "By him it is that we have
access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and boast in hope of
the glory of God," Rom. v. 1, 2. So that we must have "all our
communion with God through him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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