Two Mothers, Two Covenants, Two Children...

"This must follow, unless we break the chain of the apostle's reasoning. If Sara and Hagar were the typical mothers of believers and of unbelievers respectively, then indeed they were very expressive types of these two opposite covenants under which their respective seeds do stand. — As the one mother was a handmaid or servant to the other, so in the depths of adorable wisdom, the one covenant was made subservient to the other. The law is our school-master to bring us unto Christ, Gal. iii. 24. The covenant of works drives sinners to that of grace. Sara was prior to Hagar, and the Abrahamic covenant to that from Sinai. Sara excelled Hagar in dignity, and so does the Abrahamic covenant the Sinaitic. Hagar, however, soon brought forth a son, not so Sara. The children of the bond-woman are always older than those of the free. Never a saint, but he was a sinner first. The flesh is elder than the Spirit, nature than grace. How fitly may the two covenants be compared to mothers? In virtue of the covenant of works we are born the children of wrath, Eph. ii. 3. In virtue of the promise of the covenant of grace we are born again, Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27. In both cases we are merely passive, corruption being conveyed by the curse of the one covenant, and regeneration by the promise of the other. These two mothers divide the whole of the human race betwixt them. Not a man but is a son of the one, or of the other. And, says our apostle, we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise, Gal. iv. 28." [emphasis added]

Thomas Bell, A View of the Covenants of Works and Grace. 1814 

Righteouseness imputed to believer "because it is already his" - John Colquhoun

"From what has been stated, we may learn a satisfactory answer to this question, How shall man be just with God? How can an unrighteous person be accepted as righteous, by an infinitely righteous Judge? It can not possibly be on the ground of his own performances; for though he should even from the moment of his birth till that of his death, obey the law perfectly, it could never satisfy for the sin in which he was born. It is by the consummate righteousness of Jesus Christ received by faith, that he can be just in the eye of the law, or the sight of God. 

"Hence learn, that the righteousness which is the ground of a sinner's justification, is not the believer's because it is imputed to him; but it is imputed to him because it is already his. In God's imputation of it, he reckons it to be what it is already, the believer's justifying righteousness. It is the believer's, in virtue of his legal union with Christ from eternity, and of his vital union with him in time.

"See also the glorious design of Jehovah in imputing the surety-righteousness of Jesus Christ to his spiritual seed. It is that you, believer, may live; may have a legal right to spiritual, temporal, and eternal life. Your sin was imputed to Christ that he might die: his righteousness is imputed to you that you may live."

John Colquhoun, Sermon IX - Justification

Justification - John Colquhoun

"Hence learn the meaning of these expressions in the thirty-second Psalm, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven," and "blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity." The first expresses the way in which God in justification pardons past and present sins; and the last, the way in which he forgives the sins, that the justified person afterwards commits: he pardons the first formally, and the last by securing the non-imputation of them. 

"From what has been said, the exercised Christian may see how to treat the law as a covenant, when it presents its indictment to his conscience, and demands eternal death. He is to send it to Jesus his responsible Surety, and it cannot refuse to go. He is united to Christ as his glorious Husband, and justified in him: and whatever claim the law may have upon him, he is to refer it to his Husband. It is the husband that pays the debts. 

"Hence, we may see the reason why the believer's good works are accepted by God: it is neither for their sake, nor his sake, but for Christ's righteousness' sake; it is because the believer's person is accepted in Christ the Beloved, in whom he is declared righteous. In the covenant of grace, acceptance begins with the person, and passes on to the work."

John Colquhoun, Sermon IX - Justification

A Saving Faith...

"Much more than being a mode of knowledge, faith involves a sincere trust in Christ and his gospel for salvation. 

"Question and Answer 86 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism provides a concise and helpful statement of this insight. In response to the question of what faith in Jesus Christ is, the catechism answers: "Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel." Not only must the mind grasp the things about Christ and his gospel, but also the heart must rest upon him as the perfect Savior from sins. This character of justifying faith as trust in Christ has prompted some theologians to speak of faith as "extraspective." The term introspective is familiar to most people: it refers to looking within oneself. Something that is extraspective, then, concerns looking outside oneself. That is precisely what faith as trust does: it looks outside of oneself (thereby forsaking all self-confidence) and rests upon another, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has done all things necessary for our salvation."

David VanDrunen, The Nature of Justifying Faith. Modern Reformation: Sept./Oct. 2007
Volume: 16 Issue: 5

Spiritual Contentment...

"The comfort of justification, because it is founded upon a righteousness which is perfect, and always the same, is more stable and permanent, than that of sanctification." 

John Colquhoun, A Treatise on Spiritual Comfort

Gospel Remedy For A Guilty Conscience...

"The cause of the Israelites' distress arose from the Egyptians marching behind them, with full purpose to ruin and destroy them, Exod. xiv. 10. The anti-type of this type shows the cause of the soul's abovesaid distress, which is the letting in of the soul's guilt of sin upon him, which, like a huge army, pursues the soul day and night, and like so many devouring lions with open mouths, standing ready to devour the soul; which makes the soul, as the Jews did, oftentimes to cry out for a grave to bury his distressed body, judging death to be preferred before life. There is no trouble in the world like to this trouble. A man had better stand in the field against all the armies and cannon in the world, than to stand to behold a guilty conscience....

"If any soul wants relief in such a condition, then let him make unto Jesus Christ for it, for he is thy Leader in this case, as Moses was the leader of the Jews in the other: read Deut. xviii. 15, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken." Now, where were the Jews to go in a time of danger, but to Moses? So, soul, if ever thou wouldest have ease and refreshment, thou must go to Christ alone. Some run to creatures, and think to find comfort there; others run to their duties and works of mercy, and think to get it from hence: again there are some that will send thee to thy inward qualifications, or work of God within thee, as they call it, or the light within the soul. I am not hereby undervaluing the works of grace, as they are signs or evidences of our union with Christ, but I send thee to thy true Leader, Christ, who is at the right hand of God, to make daily intercession for such as thou art, Rom. viii. 34. O, look out, and look up to him by faith, for this is the way to it, Isa. xlv. 22."

Thomas Worden, 1664. THE TYPES UNVEILED - THE GOSPEL PICKED OUT OF THE CEREMONIES; WHEREBY WE MAY COMPARE THE SUBSTANCE WITH THE SHADOW, abridged edition 1840. pp 47, 49-50

Sanctification: Look On Christ in the Gospel...

"Let faith look on Christ in the gospel as he is set forth dying and crucified for us. Look on him under the weight of our sins, praying, bleeding, dying; bring him in that condition into thy heart by faith; apply his blood so shed to thy corruptions: do this daily."

John Owen, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers 

We Know in Part...

"Hence it is with peculiar reference to Moses that it is said, “No man hath seen God at any time,” John i. 18; of him in comparison with Christ doth he speak, verse 17; and of him it is here said, “No man,” no, not Moses, the most eminent among them, “hath seen God at any time.” We speak much of God, can talk of him, his ways, his works, his counsels, all the day long; the truth is, we know very little of him. Our thoughts, our meditations, our expressions of him are low, many of them unworthy of his glory, none of them reaching his perfections."

- John Owen. Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers