"Faith Reviving" by Augustus Toplady

I recently read J.I. Packer's A Quest for Godliness and discovered this gem-of-a-text within. It's both a blessing and a challenge. A blessing because it reminds me of the truth that my heart so desperately needs to hear. A challenge because I spend everyday of my life trying to justify myself in the way that this hymn explains Christ has already done.

From whence this fear and unbelief?
Hath not the Father put to grief
His spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous Judge of men
Condemn me for that debt sin
Which, Lord, was charged on thee?

Complete atonement thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whate'er they people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place
If sheltered in thy righteousness,
And sprinkled with thy blood?

If thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely in my room endured
The whole of wrath divine,
Payment God cannot twice demand--
First at my bleeding Surety's hand,
And then again at mine.

Turn then, my soul, unto they rest!
The merits of thy great High Priest
Have bought thy liberty;
Trust in his efficacious blood,
Nor fear thy banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee.

quote on justification by faith alone

This is an excerpt from Martin Luther's On Chrisitan Liberty, a fantastic little book explorating the doctrine of justification by faith alone that you should go buy if you don't already have it.

"The third incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Eph. 5:31-32]. And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage--indeed the most perfect of all marriages, since human marriages are but poor examples of this one true marriage--it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glorify in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. Let us compare these and we shall see inestimable benefits. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ's, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul's; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride's and bestow upon her the things that are his. If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?