ii. 30). And so Paul says that Abraham's faith was imputed to him for
righteousness, because by it he gave glory to God; and that to us
also, for the same reason, it shall be imputed for righteousness, if we
believe (Rom. iv.).

The third incomparable grace of faith is this: that it unites the soul
to Christ, as the wife to the husband, by which mystery, as the Apostle
teaches, Christ and the soul are made one flesh. Now if they are one
flesh, and if a true marriage--nay, by far the most perfect of all
marriages--is accomplished between them (for human marriages are but
feeble types of this one great marriage), then it follows that all they
have becomes theirs in common, as well good things as evil things; so
that whatsoever Christ possesses, that the believing soul may take to
itself and boast of as its own, and whatever belongs to the soul, that
Christ claims as His.

If we compare these possessions, we shall see how inestimable is the
gain. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation; the soul is full of
sin, death, and condemnation. Let faith step in, and then sin, death,
and hell will belong to Christ, and grace, life, and salvation to the
soul. For, if He is a Husband, He must needs take to Himself that which
is His wife's, and at the same time, impart to His wife that which is
His. For, in giving her His own body and Himself, how can He but give
her all that is His? And, in taking to Himself the body of His wife, how
can He but take to Himself all that is hers?

In this is displayed the delightful sight, not only of communion, but of
a prosperous warfare, of victory, salvation, and redemption. For, since
Christ is God and man, and is such a Person as neither has sinned, nor
dies, nor is condemned, nay, cannot sin, die, or be condemned, and since
His righteousness, life, and salvation are invincible, eternal, and
almighty,--when I say, such a Person, by the wedding-ring of faith,
takes a share in the sins, death, and hell of His wife, nay, makes them
His own, and deals with them no otherwise than as if they were His, and
as if He Himself had sinned; and when He suffers, dies, and descends to
hell, that He may overcome all things, and since sin, death, and
hell cannot swallow Him up, they must needs be swallowed up by Him in
stupendous conflict. For His righteousness rises above the sins of all
men; His life is more powerful than all death; His salvation is more
unconquerable than all hell.

Thus the believin