The Life, Walk, & Triumph of Faith
William Romaine 1714-1795
The law, having done its office, as a schoolmaster, by convincing the sinner of these truths, stops his mouth, that he has not a word to say, why sentence should not be passed upon him. And there it leaves him guilty, and helpless. It can do nothing more for him, than shew him that he is a child of wrath, and that he deserves to have the wrath of God abiding upon him forever.
The Gospel finds him in this condition, as the good Samaritan did the wounded traveler, and brings him good news. It discovers to him the way of salvation contrived in the covenant of grace, and manifests to him what the ever blessed Trinity had there in purposed, and what in the fullness of time was accomplished. That all the perfections of the Godhead might be infinitely and everlastingly glorified, the Father covenanted to gain honor and dignity to His law and justice, to his faithfulness and holiness by insisting upon man's appearing at His bar in the perfect righteousness of the law.....the Lord Christ, a Person in the Godhead co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, undertook to be his (mans) Savior. He covenanted to stand up as the Head and Surety of His people in their nature and in their stead, to obey for them, that by His everlastingly meritorious stripes they might be healed. In this covenant, the Holy Spirit, a Person co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son, undertook the gracious office of quickening and convincing sinners in their consciences, how guilty they were, and how much they needed a Savior, and to convince them that He was able to save all that came unto God through Him and in their hearts to receive Him, and to believe unto righteousness, and then in their walk and manner of life to live upon His grace and strength.
A sinner will never seek after nor desire Christ farther than he feels his guilt and his misery; nor will he receive Christ by faith till all other methods of saving himself fail; nor will he live upon Christ's fullness farther than he has an abiding sense of his own need of Him.
The Father's love shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost is the foretaste of glory. Whoever enjoys it, has found what is more to be desired than gold; yea, than much fine gold; sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. O, it is indeed heaven upon earth. To preserve it, to improve it, is become the only study of the happy believer. The panting of his soul is after more of this love. The prayer of his faith is, "O thou eternal Spirit, help me so to walk with my most loving Father as that I may maintain peace with Him in my conscience, and a growing love to Him in my heart, until Thou bring me into the enjoyment of everlasting peace and love.
From Romaine's Letters:
For, have you not renounced your righteousness as well as your sins? Have you no more dependence on your good works than on your bad works? Is not the holy nature of our Immanuel, his infinitely holy life, his everlastingly precious death--Is not this complete work of His, the only ground of your hope?
When I feel the depth of my distress and need, and the infinite riches of Jesus' grace to supply them, then faith does its office rightly, when it is not discouraged by a sense of many increasing needs, but is thereby made to cleave closer to Jesus, and to prize him more. The height of Jesus' grace is exactly suited to the depth of my distress.
Your happy walk (as a Christian) depends entirely on the belief of God's being perfectly reconciled to you in His Son. And, therefore, you should not be aiming at earning any new title to your heavenly Father's love, but rather at increasing new enjoyment of it. All is yours' in title; but your are to seek for more, still more possession: every day you should be seeking to believe more, to enjoy more of the riches of your Father's love in Jesus.
From 12 Discourses Upon the Law and the Gospel, on Mark 12:28-31:
If you withdraw your allegiance from the Three Persons in One Jehovah, and pay it to an absolute God existing in one person, you are as guilty of idolatry as if you had twenty thousand gods. This is the case of every deist, who by rejecting the scripture doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, is in as bad a state as the atheist: for what is the difference between him who has no God, and him who has a false God? They are both without the true God in the wold, both traitors against the Majesty of Jehovah, and both have turned away their ears from hearing His Laws...........The right knowledge of God then consists in believing, that in Jehovah, the self-existent essence, there are Three Co-equal and Co-eternal persons, between Whom there is no difference or inequality..............The true object of worship then, to Whom our obedience and love are due, is Jehovah Alehim, as it says in our Creed (Church of England), "the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshiped." And is this, my brethren, the object of your worship? Do you pay your allegiance to a God in one person, or to Jehovah in Trinty? If you have not been determined to worship Jehovah Alehim, but have broken this first part of the great commandment of all, you cannot keep the other parts: for the Love of God depends upon the knowledge of God. How can you Love the True God unless you know Him.
William Romaine 1714-1795
The law, having done its office, as a schoolmaster, by convincing the sinner of these truths, stops his mouth, that he has not a word to say, why sentence should not be passed upon him. And there it leaves him guilty, and helpless. It can do nothing more for him, than shew him that he is a child of wrath, and that he deserves to have the wrath of God abiding upon him forever.
The Gospel finds him in this condition, as the good Samaritan did the wounded traveler, and brings him good news. It discovers to him the way of salvation contrived in the covenant of grace, and manifests to him what the ever blessed Trinity had there in purposed, and what in the fullness of time was accomplished. That all the perfections of the Godhead might be infinitely and everlastingly glorified, the Father covenanted to gain honor and dignity to His law and justice, to his faithfulness and holiness by insisting upon man's appearing at His bar in the perfect righteousness of the law.....the Lord Christ, a Person in the Godhead co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, undertook to be his (mans) Savior. He covenanted to stand up as the Head and Surety of His people in their nature and in their stead, to obey for them, that by His everlastingly meritorious stripes they might be healed. In this covenant, the Holy Spirit, a Person co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son, undertook the gracious office of quickening and convincing sinners in their consciences, how guilty they were, and how much they needed a Savior, and to convince them that He was able to save all that came unto God through Him and in their hearts to receive Him, and to believe unto righteousness, and then in their walk and manner of life to live upon His grace and strength.
A sinner will never seek after nor desire Christ farther than he feels his guilt and his misery; nor will he receive Christ by faith till all other methods of saving himself fail; nor will he live upon Christ's fullness farther than he has an abiding sense of his own need of Him.
The Father's love shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost is the foretaste of glory. Whoever enjoys it, has found what is more to be desired than gold; yea, than much fine gold; sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. O, it is indeed heaven upon earth. To preserve it, to improve it, is become the only study of the happy believer. The panting of his soul is after more of this love. The prayer of his faith is, "O thou eternal Spirit, help me so to walk with my most loving Father as that I may maintain peace with Him in my conscience, and a growing love to Him in my heart, until Thou bring me into the enjoyment of everlasting peace and love.
From Romaine's Letters:
For, have you not renounced your righteousness as well as your sins? Have you no more dependence on your good works than on your bad works? Is not the holy nature of our Immanuel, his infinitely holy life, his everlastingly precious death--Is not this complete work of His, the only ground of your hope?
When I feel the depth of my distress and need, and the infinite riches of Jesus' grace to supply them, then faith does its office rightly, when it is not discouraged by a sense of many increasing needs, but is thereby made to cleave closer to Jesus, and to prize him more. The height of Jesus' grace is exactly suited to the depth of my distress.
Your happy walk (as a Christian) depends entirely on the belief of God's being perfectly reconciled to you in His Son. And, therefore, you should not be aiming at earning any new title to your heavenly Father's love, but rather at increasing new enjoyment of it. All is yours' in title; but your are to seek for more, still more possession: every day you should be seeking to believe more, to enjoy more of the riches of your Father's love in Jesus.
From 12 Discourses Upon the Law and the Gospel, on Mark 12:28-31:
If you withdraw your allegiance from the Three Persons in One Jehovah, and pay it to an absolute God existing in one person, you are as guilty of idolatry as if you had twenty thousand gods. This is the case of every deist, who by rejecting the scripture doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, is in as bad a state as the atheist: for what is the difference between him who has no God, and him who has a false God? They are both without the true God in the wold, both traitors against the Majesty of Jehovah, and both have turned away their ears from hearing His Laws...........The right knowledge of God then consists in believing, that in Jehovah, the self-existent essence, there are Three Co-equal and Co-eternal persons, between Whom there is no difference or inequality..............The true object of worship then, to Whom our obedience and love are due, is Jehovah Alehim, as it says in our Creed (Church of England), "the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshiped." And is this, my brethren, the object of your worship? Do you pay your allegiance to a God in one person, or to Jehovah in Trinty? If you have not been determined to worship Jehovah Alehim, but have broken this first part of the great commandment of all, you cannot keep the other parts: for the Love of God depends upon the knowledge of God. How can you Love the True God unless you know Him.