The Works of Nathanael Emmons

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART XIV. JUSTIFICATION SERMONS XLVI.?XLIX. VOL. V. SERMON XLVI. JUSTIFICATION OF BELIEVERS. TdzuroR being justified by faith, we havo peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ? Romans, v. 1. The apostle having, in the preceding chapters, established the doctrine of justification by faith alone through the atonement of Christ, proceeds to draw a just and important inference from it in the text. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Justification places all, who cordially believe in Christ, in a new, a safe, and a happy situation. There is, however, no small difficulty in reconciling this with some other equally plain and important truths of the gospel. But all this difficulty, perhaps, may be entirely removed by exhibiting the doctrine of justification in a just and scriptural light. In attempting to do this, it is proposed, I. To describe true believers. II. To consider what is meant by their being justified. III. To consider how they are justified. IV. To consider when they are justified. V. To consider the terms upon which they are justified. I. I am to describe true believers. These are persons who have been brought out of a state of nature into a state of grace. All men are by nature morally depraved, and entirely destitute of the least degree of true love to God. They are completely under the dominion of a carnal mind, which is enmity against God, not subject to his law, neither indeed can be. They deserve nothing better from the hand of God, whom they have hated and disobeyed, than eternal death, the proper wages ofsin. Now, all true believers have been awakened to see themselves in this guilty and perishing condition, and brought to accept the punishment of their iniquities, ...