But then what is a spiritual Saint? Why he is one that lives by faith above sense; one that is all in God, and nothing in himself; he is taught of God to know him; he is drawn by God to love him; he is persuaded by God to trust in him; he is filled with God, and lives upon him; he is satisfied with Christ, and rejoices in him; he so lives in Christ, that he makes his boast of him, as the Apostle, Romans 8, the latter end. “Who shall condemn; nay who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” He is one which in the spirit is able to look from eternity to eternity, and therein behold that eternal love of God which gave out Christ to manifest his love to us in him, and hath made him one with Christ in all his merits, righteousness and benefits; he is able to see into that love and eternal purpose of God that made Christ to be sin for us, “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” He can see God his Father, and in the spirit of adoption call him Father; he can read his Salvation written in the Covenant of Grace; he can behold himself one in Christ, as Christ is in God; he assuredly knows that Christ hath borne his grief, and that God hath wounded Christ for his transgressions, bruised him for his iniquities, and laid the chastisement of his peace on him, and all this so fully and really, as that by the stripes that God laid on Christ, his soul is healed. He sees that God hath made Christ’s soul an offering for the sins of his people; and that he hath beheld the travail of his soul, and is well pleased; so that now this spiritual man draws up this conclusion. Whatever of sin and punishment was mine, was taken from me, and made Christ’s, and he has fully satisfied for the one, and borne the other; so that now from the justice of God I can conclude this, that neither of them shall be laid on me again. Christ’s Righteousness and his glory is so made mine, that I stand spotless in the one, and shall be perfect in the other to all eternity. Thus is a spiritual soul led up to God, and made to know his great design from eternity; namely, to make Christ his wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, and that in all these he stands perfect before God, in the perfection of Christ.
--- Robert Tichborne (1610-1682)
Everlasting Love of God in Christ
God doth not make known his love for the forgiveness of sin, but by Jesus Christ. I confess that we are saved by grace in respect of God, before we know the grace of God in Jesus Christ; but we cannot see this grace, until we behold it in the face of the Lord Jesus. We behold the love of God in giving the Lord Jesus to be the atonement, sacrifice, and propitiation for our sins, before we can read the everlasting love and favor of the Father to us in his Son. Eternal love is the primary cause of our salvation and justification; but it cannot be apprehended by us, until we apprehend in the first place our redemption in Jesus Christ; and when Christ is embraced as a Savior in the arms of faith, we rise higher in our thoughts, by the power of the Spirit, and are brought to look upon the eternity of love; and have liberty to read every line in his eternal volume, which doth concern our eternal life and salvation; and are fully confirmed in the point of God's eternal election, without the prevision of good works, which should be wrought by the creature. As the Apostle doth prove at large in the ninth to the Romans; and if any man will dispute or rather cavil against this truth, I shall say with the Apostle, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” {Rom.9:20,21} And though men, unacquainted with this truth, may account this rather a shift or evasion, than an answer to their carnal objections against election and reprobation, yet I shall not be ashamed of my answer.
--- John Simpson {Perfection of Justification, 1648}
Faith
Many pretend that they look on grace, but it is through the spectacles of their own works; but he that truly doth eye grace, he looks on grace in an act of believing, and not through working. - Believing empties the creature of all works, and righteousness, and shows that he is nothing in himself, and that all his treasure, glory, happiness, riches, and perfection lies treasured and laid up in Another. Faith bringeth a man in a poor and beggarly condition to Christ, that he may be enriched by Christ.
--- John Simpson {Perfection of Justification, 1648}
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