V. What area the effects of faith?

The effects of justifying faith are,

1. Our justification before God.

2. Joy and delight in God, with peace of conscience. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." (Rom. 5:1.)

3. Conversion, regeneration, and universal obedience. "Purifying their hearts by faith." (Acts 15:9.)

4. The consequences which belong to the effects of faith, such as an increase of temporal and spiritual gifts, and the reception of these gifts by faith.

The first effect, therefore, of justifying faith, is our justification. After this has once taken place, all the other benefits which follow faith are made over unto us, which benefits, we believe, are given unto us by faith, inasmuch as faith is the cause of them. For that which is the cause of a cause, is also the cause of the effect. If faith be, therefore, the last cause of our justification, it is likewise the cause of those things which follow our justification. "Thy faith hath made thee whole." (Luke 8:48.) In a word, the effects of faith are justification, and regeneration which is begun in this life, and will be perfected in the life to come. (Rom. 3:28; 10:10. Acts 13:39.)