+III. A sinner is justified by mere faith.+--That is, nothing within us concurs as a cause of our justification but faith, and nothing apprehends Christ's obedience for our justification but faith. This will more easily appear if we compare faith, hope, and love. Faith is like a hand that opens itself to receive a gift, and so is neither love nor hope. Love is also a hand, but yet a hand that gives out, communicates, and distributes. For as faith receives Christ into our hearts, so love opens the heart and pours our praise and thanks to God and all manner of goodness to men. Hope is no hand, but an eye that wistfully looks and waits for the good things faith believes. Therefore, it is the only property of faith to clasp and lay hold of Christ and His benefits. +IV. The practice of them that are justified is to believe.+--To put their trust in Christ. 1. Faith and practice must reign in the heart and have all at command. We must not go by sense, feeling, reason, but shut our eyes and let faith keep our hearts close to the promise of God. Faith must overrule and command nature and the strongest affections thereof. 2. When we know not what to do by reason of the greatness of our distress, we must fix our hearts on Christ with separation, as he that climbs up a ladder or some steep place: the higher he goes the faster he holds.--_Perkins._ Vers. 17, 18. _False Methods of Salvation_-- +I. To seek justification in any other way than through Christ.+--"If, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners" (ver. 17). +II. Reflect unjustly on the character of the only Saviour.+--"Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid" (ver. 17). +III. Aggravate our sin by restoring in practice what we have abandoned in theory.+--"For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor" (ver. 18). Ver. 19. _The Christian Dead to the Law._