John Foreman, Duty Faith (Complete)

“Duty Faith”, By John Foreman, Minister of Mount Zion Chapel, London, 1860

Preface

These Letters, by Mr. John Foreman, ought to be read by all the Churches in Christendom. They are a wholesome handful of meal, suited to counter act the deadly poison passed off for Gospel in the present day. Never was decision…

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Sir,

I am, from the truth, example, and authority of the New Testament word of God, a Strict Baptist communionist, knowing most assuredly, that no man, living under the profession of the name of Christ, can really regard and solemnly take that holy word for the standard of his faith and sole rule of his life, and not be so. But having, on the 17th of December last, received some papers, in the form of…

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You consider that the obligation of every man to believe unto salvation, depends on ‘The rule of universal obedience, which is the very essence of God’s law.’ This is a most sorry huddling together of things which are fundamentally dissimilar in their…

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There is properly, nothing without covenant system and order, of all things that are of God with man; whether they be gifts or claims, obligations or blessings. For when the Lord made Adam, and the whole human race in him as their head, he made a covenant with him, Gen 2:15-17, and according to which he gave him the good of Eden, and thereby all the good of pure…

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God made a covenant with Abraham, by which he gave to him and his seed the land of Canaan, and all the good thereof. The whole race of Adam universally were never within this covenant with Abraham and his seed, nor intended to be so; and so they, accordingly, were never universally partakers of its peculiar form of privileges, and so, accordingly, were not under its peculiar form of obligations to obey its…

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The Lord saith, I have made a covenant with my chosen,’ Ps 89:3,4, meaning with David as the type and figure, but with Christ as the true antitype and head, and with his seed, the chosen in him, of the redeemed and represented by him. And this is called, an everlasting covenant, Heb 13: 20 the covenant of peace that shall not be removed, Isa. 54:10 “a covenant that God will not…

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Now I cannot see what the obligations of the Eden covenant of nature can have to do with faith in this covenant of mercy, by a surety’s blood, as a duty; because the most perfect obedience maintained in Eden could in no way, from its very nature, be any title, or even any sort of introduction, to any of the mercy favors: of this covenant. And as the Eden covenant, which was but a fair legal contract between sinless man and…

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Duty faith makes the gospel a ministration of cruelty and injustice, but men are damned for law-breaking not for failing to savingly believe. I think we have shown sufficiently plain above, that duty faith in a covenant of grace unto salvation could never grow out of, nor come from the Eden covenant of works; so that such an obligation, to exist at all, must be new, and peculiar to the gospel dispensation as its cause. And then, in reply to this, we ask, and does the gospel give universal life and strength to all where it comes, to become such as the word of God declares to be believers unto salvation? We know it does not, for a natural man under the gospel is no more than a natural man anywhere else. And has any natural man in and of himself, or even had in Adam at first by that covenant, the power to make himself what the word of God declares a believer unto salvation? I say, no; and very few will venture to say, against all truth, that he has. And yet men holding duty faith, will say that the…

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The distinction between the two permanent covenants—the law of works and the law of faith.

Of the several covenants mentioned in the word of God, there are but two which we may properly call uncircumstantially permanent, and of eternal consequences to the soul of man. The one being the nature covenant with Adam and all the human race in him, having the law of works for its ministry; and which, through man’s sin, is called the ministration of death. And the other, the covenant of grace with Christ and all his seed in him, having the law of faith for its ministry, called the ministration of life, because it is the gospel of the grace of God only. And every man of the whole human race is under one or the other of these two laws; either by legal right and contract under the former, or by favor it only under the latter.

If a man by the Holy Spirit, and regenerating grace and favor of God, be under grace, and so under the law of faith, he is not, nor can he be under the law of works at the same time; even so the natural man being under the law of works, cannot be under grace and the law of faith at the same time. And a man’s duties and obligations, both in the nature and extent of them, are prescribed and determined by the law that he is under. The truth of this, I consider the apostle most clearly sets forth, by…

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The two words law and faith are very comprehensive systematical terms; very different in their nature, and occupying perfectly distinct premises. The law occupies the entire premises and dominion of death through sin; and faith occupies the entire premises of life and salvation, by divine promise, through the blood and righteousness of the Son of God. So that we may observe, that as faith cannot be separated from any part of its connection and interest, then,

First. If faith unto salvation be the natural man’s duty, then it must be the natural man’s duty to be all that the actual believer, through grace unto salvation, really and properly is. And then it must be the natural man’s duty to be of God’s chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world—to be of the predestinated unto the adoption of sons—to be of the foreknown predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Son, to be called, to be justified, and to be glorified—to be a vessel of mercy afore prepared unto glory—to be redeemed by the blood of Christ—to be born of the Spirit—to be quickened together with…

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Perhaps it will be said that duty faith, as held by those who embrace it, is but one among many glorious points of Bible truth and doctrine which they hold, and, therefore, not of sufficient importance to divide about. But I must say, from thirty years’ observation, that whatever other doctrines are held in connection with It, I have always seen that duty faith is leaven that leavens the whole lump. And that as a disease is contrary to the health, and alters the natural figure and countenance of a person, until he looks not at all like the man of his name; even so is duty faith contrary to the very spirit, healthy fulness, richness, freeness, harmony, and beauty of every truth by which salvation by grace only is revealed and declared, until the whole countenance of gospel truth is altered thereby, and made of doubtful appearance as to which takes the greatest share, man’s duty or the grace of God in the salvation of a sinner.

To my apprehension, duty faith is no part of the moral law or covenant, equitably instituted on the day of creation, between God the creator and man the creature. It is no part of, nor any way belongs to the covenant of grace with Christ for the chosen seed, or to the law of the Spirit of life in him, Heb 13:20; Rom 8:2. And so it is neither a doctrine of the law nor of the gospel, but a muddling denial of the true spirit of both, agreeing with neither. Because it is opposed to the…

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Faith unto salvation considered and enforced as the natural man’s duty, is not of grace, nor of the spirit of grace; but it is, (1) Of the spirit of that zeal by which the Jews went about to establish their own righteousness, not submitting themselves unto the righteousness of God, Rom 10:3. (2) It is of that spirit of the five foolish virgins whose vessels were without oil, who made creatures their first recourse, and then thought by the natural duty, like self-effort of purchase, to establish a right to, and acquire to themselves the possession of all things, which the five wise virgins had and took, without any…

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Duty faith unto salvation says in the Midland Counties Association, that the power of salvation lies sufficiently in religious means; but the Bible faith says, that the power of salvation lies alone in God the Saviour, sovereignty and severally as he will, Matt 7:13; 2 Cor 4:7; 1 Cor 12: 2.

Duty faith in Mr. H., treating a spiritual state with disdain, as the mere invention of fancy, says, that the natural man can know and receive the things of the Spirit, and that the common intellect of man is sufficient of itself savingly to comprehend all such things; but the faith of the Bible says, ‘What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man that is in him? Even so the…

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Duty faith goes by proposals to put the world of sinners in the same position for heaven and eternal salvation, as Moses addressed the Israelites, saying, ‘I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live,’ Deut 30:19. As though the world had only to make their own choice in believing, and so obtain salvation, or lose it; yea, more, be damned for not believing unto salvation when it was so proposed to them. But these cases are not at all parallel, because Moses did not hereby propose to the heathen world, much less made it their penal obligation to make themselves Israelites of the seed of Abraham and his seed, so as to possess that land in common with them, or to be cut off from the face of the whole earth for not being and doing all this. But Moses was speaking to them as…

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If for believing the sinner should be saved, or for not believing he should be damned, and such faith to be the natural man’s duty, this would indeed be putting salvation into man’s own hands. And if the Lord had thus put salvation into man’s own hands as a charge, together with the endowment of sufficient ability at any time to be able to keep and perform that charge, then man would be justly subject to capital punishment, as a sort of spiritual murderer, if he neglected to exercise his given ability to the salvation of his soul.

But is the case so? Is this in fact the truth? No; for Job was a believing man of God, Job 1:8; but as he was not by experience quite strip, emptied, and brought down to the…

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Duty faith, or the duty of the natural man to believe unto salvation, is a doctrine, in my opinion, really bad in its nature, being altogether opposed to the spirit, nature, and truth of God’s purely free grace salvation; and, consequently, that it is bad in all its branches, forms, and degrees, in which and to which it is carried out by its different advocates. Some hold it in a manner quite contradictory to…

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One radical and very fruitful evil in the spirit of duty faith is, that it turns all the particular invitations of the gospel into general ones, saying, ‘they belong to all alike, and not to any particular characters,’ as are named in the invitations. The invitations of the gospel are a very rich and precious part of the word of God, and in them are contained four jewel ingredients of precious truth for special purposes, and which are, first, the nature of a promise; second, the welcome character described; third, the adapted blessing named; and fourth, the welcome expressed, come, &c. And the invitations of the gospel are in every point and property as sure and infallibly amen in Christ Jesus, as the more simple promises are; for the truth of the Lord, of which the invitations are a most gracious part, ‘endureth for ever.’ Divine truth never did fail, nor in part of it can it fail, in the use and end that God himself intends thereby; and if any part fail in the way that man takes it up and applies it, that is a clear and undeniable proof at once, of its being taken up wrong, and in a way and for an end the Holy Spirit of truth never intended. And nothing is more self-evident than that universal invitations have failed, do fall, and must fail; many of the invited being in a state in which it is impossible for them to come, and are without any warrant from the Lord that they ever will be in a possible state to come, and if the invited to the eternal salvation of God never come, does not the invitation fall? Because it cannot be said in this case as in a mere natural one, ‘That I sent for them to come if…

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First, that universal invitations can never be made to agree with particular, fixed, and eternal purposes; a particular covenant that shall never be broken, is everlasting, immovable, ordered in all things and sure; a particular redemption that is real and eternal; particular promises that are all yea and amen in Christ; and a particular provision which God ‘will abundantly bless.’ And it is most certain, that if universal invitations cannot be made to agree with those great points, they can form no part of the ministry of those great points, and so, no part of the ministry in the communication of the blessings thereof. The economy of grace can only be sure, as it is particular, and must be as particular as it is really sure. And that it is particular must be admitted, if the Bible be admitted as the standard law-book of the case; for the Lord knew the end from the beginning, Isaiah 46:10; ‘For he himself knew what he would do, John 6: 6; ‘That the purpose of God according to election might stand, Rom 9:11; ‘Even so, then, there is at this present time a remnant according to election of grace; and if by grace, then it is no more of works,’ Rom 9:5,6; ‘Our God is in the heavens, and he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased,’ Psalm 115:3: ‘Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight,’ Matt 11:25-27. ‘So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy,’ Rom 9: 16; Now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe, John 14:29; that in purpose, God’s works were finished from the foundation of the world,’ Heb 4:3.

The provisions of grace are not only made for the certain support and eternal salvation of all them that come to Christ by faith, but are equally and altogether as much made for the purpose of quickening, disposing, and bringing by faith to Christ, all and every one that shall be saved by him; none have ever come to Christ in any other way than by the…

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The fact that universal invitations cannot be made to agree with any doctrine of particular grace and ensured salvation, is forced to be admitted by some of those duty-faith ministers who profess to hold election, particular redemption, free Justification, and such like doctrines of grace. But they endeavour to excuse themselves in their evident self inconsistency, by saying, that ‘truth is no system, and that it is impossible for any man to reconcile the mode of address to sinners, authorized by the word of God, with the counsels of God.’ See James Smith’s Warrant, &c. However this may appear to others, to me it appears one of the most awful conclusions that any man can come to, in the name of the great Fountain of all wisdom and order for the support of a point. Surely our God is not chargeable with this strife, this war, this opposition, this contradiction, this say and unsay with himself in his word; for he is not the author of such confusion, 1 Cor. 14: 33. What! When there is not a term used among men significant of system, but what the Holy Ghost has summoned as a figure whereby to express the systematical economy and settled order of the grace of God to men, as that of the Vine and its branches, and God the Father its husbandman; the Shepherd and his flock, the Husband and his bride, the Father and his family, the Head and its body, the covenant and the Mediator, the Testament, or will, and the Surety, &c.; and yet the truth of it, truth by which it is published, and by which only it is made known to the sons of men in the power of the Holy Ghost, is no system! There cannot be a more pointed self-contradiction. If truth be no system, then God can have no determined method, boundary, harmony of parts, or end in his…

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Second. Universal invitations are supported, and can only be supported, by a perversion and misapplication of the addresses of the word of God. It is pretended that universal invitations are used in the word of God, and accordingly to be used now on that authority, although no man can bring them into harmony with any truth of a particular nature. I have read those who have collected their supposed authority from the sacred word, and the whole appears to me to be altogether without the true mind and intent of one text cited for the purpose; and to be a direct misapplication of them, both to persons and things; and a mere catching at sounds, with a gross perversion of sense, to make it fit to the predetermined favorite point. I am confident that with such a catching at sounds, irrespective of the real mind and intent of the text, which is evident from the…

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Third. Universal invitations fully imply and really breathe the spirit of a total denial of that personal change of state, which, according to the word of God, must take place in the person for the soul to be saved; and which change of personal state is declared to have been wrought in all them who, according to New Testament record, have been believers unto salvation, and that also to have been God’s own work only. And this indispensable personal change of state is set forth in the word of God, by such figures of expression as defy any commixture of agency in the thing itself, and all power but the power of God alone to produce the same. And out of the many, we will take notice of four of those forms of expression by which this change of state for the kingdom of God is set forth.

(1) It is set forth under the figure of being generated, saying, `Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth,’ James 1:18. Surely the Holy Ghost never inspired this figure without a correspondent meaning; and with this fact duly considered as the truth of God in his own holy word, universal invitations must appear most senseless and opposed to all the laws of truth, unless it be good sense and quite consistent with the…

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If duty faith and universal invitations unto salvation were really truths of the divine mind, and of revelation, they would claim a place in the gospel ministry as first principles, and would have been held by our Lord and his apostles as of so much importance, as, for that reason and for our example, to have used them on every fair occasion, and not let one real opportunity escape the enforcing of them upon unbelieving persons. And did they do so? And have they set us any such an example? No, but altogether the contrary, as the following examples of their conduct will shew: `Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Christ,’ Matt xvi 20. On duty faith and universal invitation principles, we should suppose that all men would have been invited to come, that through seeing they might all believe, not missing such a fine opportunity, if duty faith and universal invitations had ever been in the Lord’s meaning; but instead of which it was `tell no man’ to come and see.

And when our Lord talked with the woman of Samaria, he neither told her that it was her duty to believe unto salvation nor invited her to do so, but pointed at her conscience through the…

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There could not have been three more favorable opportunities for the enforcement of duty faith and universal invitations than Peter the apostle had. First. In opening his gospel commission, in the first really and properly new testament sermon to the Jews, on the person, death and resurrection of Christ, Acts 2. Second. In his explanatory defense before the high priest and the Jewish council, Acts 4:9-12; 5:29-32. And Third. In opening his gospel commission in the first properly new testament sermon that was preached to the Gentiles, Acts 10:34 to the end of the chapter. Now these were not only opportunities, but occasions which must have made it Peter’s duty to have enforced duty faith and universal invitations, if any such things had been in his gospel commission from his Lord and Master; but we hear nothing about…

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And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ,’ Acts 24:24. This was a most favorable opportunity for duty faith and universal invitations to have been advanced and enforced; and such an opportunity too, as could not have justly or innocently been suffered to pass by un- embraced and unimproved, had any such doctrines, sentiments, principles, thoughts or ideas been contained and known in the apostle’s great commission `to bear the Lord’s name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel,’ Acts 9:15. But is there anything of the kind to be found here in Paul’s address? No, not one word, for at verse 25, chap 24 it is said, `And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled.’ Here was no duty faith nor universal invitations in this, but a fair and honest statement of facts, supported by sound and solemn reasoning. This was a mode of address to a Gentile sinner that needed no reconciling with the counsels of God and other truths of the faith of Christ.

And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds,’ Acts 26:29. Here was a good opportunity, and one in which we might reasonably expect to find something of duty faith and universal invitations principles, in some one form of countenance or another, if any such thing had been in either Paul’s creed or commission. For ‘Agrippa said unto Paul, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian,’ verse 28. And why did not Paul snatch up this opportunity that was so…

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And to what can we possibly attribute this apostolic silence on points which, if true, must give feature and figure to all other points of the gospel of God? I cannot possibly, for myself, account for this dead silence on duty faith and universal invitations otherwise than that these points were nonentities in the apostolic gospel of God; and that it is of the devil, antichrist, and the pride and false piety of men, that they have either name, place or being for gospel, the truth of God, or anything related thereunto now. Duty faith men make duty faith and universal invitations to give countenance and cast to the whole of their gospel; and how is this, that our duty faith men make that to be so much in every thing, which the apostles were as silent upon as death in every thing? This awful difference has not come from God, but from the parent of those spirits, 1 John 4:1, and is of their fraternity only.

Our God is of one uniform mind, and the Spirit of truth speaketh one and the same thing, in the same ministry, through all ages, without contradiction. And most certainly, that which was not gospel truth in the mouth of the apostles’ public ministration of the `whole counsel of God,’ of `all the words of this life,’ declaring all that they had…

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It has been said, `That it is the duty of all men to be what grace makes the Christian.’ This is plain, and the plainer it is the better we can understand it, and the less likely we are to make mistakes. But in reply to this, let us observe:

First. That so it would be the duty of all men, if Adam had been as a head to his whole posterity exactly what Christ is as a head to his believing church, and the whole posterity of Adam had been in him at the first exactly what the quickened and called church is in Christ; but not otherwise, since it cannot be any man’s duty now, to be more than man was at the first. And taking Adam as a pattern of the whole, that he was in his moral uprightness, in his life and standing in Eden, and in his meetness for Eden, just what the Christian man by grace is unto salvation; and that the man of God by grace unto eternal salvation, is but a repetition of Adam’s first constitutional state and standing figure before God in Eden, either personally, systematically, properly, or prospectively, I challenge and defy any duty faith man under the heavens to prove by any one text in all the word of God. For that while Adam had in his first state but a pure earthly paradise, he stood in the very height and perfection of the bliss for which he had a personal meetness, and that on condition only of his upright continuance in the moral rectitude in which God had made him; while the Christian, by grace `a new creature,’ has a meetness for the incorruptible inheritance of heaven itself, and that ensured to him in the very life of Christ, John 14:19. The word of God, in speaking of Adam in his own order of first state, never calls him a…

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As it is impossible to give any thing of a tolerable countenance to universal invitations on particular redemption premises, so, as a sort of plea for universal invitations to salvation, the work of our Lord Jesus Christ is mauled about into all manner of shapes and forms of a something universal; but forced to be therewith of consequent uncertainty, and perishable fallibility. Because none pretend to affirm that salvation is or will finally be universal, but intimate that on the work of Christ being universal, salvation might be if men would. But according to this, so far as salvation fails to be universal, just so far the…

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It has been said, that “Christ died intentionally for the elect, and provisionally for all the rest of mankind, and that there is merit enough in the blood of Christ for the redemption of all men, if they would apply for it.”

This is as easy said as any thing else, and is very pleasant to flesh and blood, but it is not easy to be proved and sustained for truth by any one text in all the word of God; because in relation to eternal salvation, God has borne no such testimony in any part of his word, either of man, or of himself, of his will and intention, or of his work, or the worth that is in it. The Lord’s plans are all drawn in his own mind before he begins his work; the counsel of his own will, indeed, is his one great and entire plan, and to this plan he will work all things until he has fulfilled all he has purposed, promised, meant and intended; for as he is of infinite understanding, and sees the end from the beginning, all his provisions, operations, promises and intentions, are in conformity to, and all tend infallibly to secure that full end and design; for “I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it,” Ecc 3:14; so that “All God’s works shall praise him, and his saints shall bless him.”

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It has been said, `That Christ died for sin, for all sin, and not for persons in particular.’ This is a very convenient loop-hole for the bringing in of universal invitations, and human conditions for the personal acquirement of eternal life; but is this the truth of God that endureth for ever? Death is the wages of sin, and if Christ died for all sin, then is there now no more death for sin to any one. Death is the full penalty of sin, and so much of sin as Christ hath died for, so much of death that came by sin hath Christ for ever destroyed. And if Christ died for all sin, then hath he for ever abolished, swallowed up in victory, and destroyed all death, that came by sin, or by dying he hath not destroyed death at all, and in that case what has he done by dying? But according to the…

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It has been said, `That redemption is universal, and that the reason why salvation is not universal, is because men do not avail themselves of the advantages of redemption.’ This gives plenty of scope for universal invitations, and just suits the pride of the human heart, because it gives to man a sort of self-dispensing power over the eternal favours of God, and denies God’s sovereignty in the dispensations of his own blessings. This also makes the redemption work of Christ to come a certain distance toward the sinner, but not to reach all the way to him as a sinner, without strength, dead in sins, and at enmity against God, in order to fetch him out from that very state. But if the ladder which Jacob saw had not come all the way to the earth, it could have marked out no way of intercourse for him with heaven, or heaven with him: and so the work of Christ would do nothing if it did not reach all the way to the sinner’s case as a sinner. But quite contrary, and very happily so, to the above nonsense of the sinner’s availing himself, the apostle Paul declares the work of our Lord Jesus Christ to extend to the sinner as a sinner considered, and not to him merely considered as a coming saint: saying, `When we were yet without strength, Christ died for the…

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