Faith the title for justification. Hearing and believing that is, knowing, confessing, and asking give us under the covenant of grace a title; nay, are the sole necessary right and title to receive the gifts purchased for us by our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. And now observe what this does not imply.
I. It does not imply anything about the time or mode of our justification. Faith in the general scheme of the Gospel is what their very birth and origin is in the particular case of the children of Christians. It constitutes a claim in our case that we should be made Christians; it is an evidence, an inward spiritual token from God, that He means us to be made Christians; it is a promise from Him who is the Author and Finisher of our faith, that He means us, that He wills us, to be Christians. Him whom God gifts with faith will He also in due time gift with evangelical, justifying grace; but the first gift does not give the second gift, it does not involve it, it does not prepare for it; it does but constitute a title to it. A title is one thing, possession is another.
II. This becomes still more clear on considering that, whereas faithis in some passages made the means of gaining acceptance, prayeris in other places spoken of as the means; and, moreover, prayer is evidently the expression of faith, so that whatever is true of prayer is true of faith also. Now it is too plain to insist upon, that though success is certainly promised to prayer in the event, yet the time of succeeding is notpromised; and, so far from its being immediate, we are expressly told to pray again and again, to continue instant in prayer, in order to succeed.
III. This is made a matter of certainty by the instances we find in the New Testament of justification by faith. We find that faith was not thought enough, but was made to lead on to other conditions. He who has the means of hearing the Gospel, and believes in it heartily, has not a means of gaining, but a title to receive, justification; he has within him a warrant, not that God has justified him, but that He will justify him.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. vi., p. 153.