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FORCE OF A TRUE FAITH.

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and willing to be deceived, and therefore a groundless faith is the more taking and forcible. Fancy will help to confirm a false faith, and so will conceit, and idleness of spirit. There is also in man a willingness to take things upon trust, without searching into the ground and reason of them. Nor will Satan be behindhand to prompt and encourage, to thy believing of a lie; for that he knows will be a means to bring thee to that end to which he greatly desires thou shouldst come. Wherefore let men beware, and O that they would! of a false and lying faith.

But if a false faith is so forcible, what is a true? What force, I say, is there in a faith that is begotten by truth, managed by truth, fed by truth, and preserved by the truth of God? Faith will make invisible things visible; not fantastically so, but substantially so. "Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." True faith carrieth along with it an evidence of the certainty of what it believeth, and that evidence is the infallible word of God. There is a God of love, a Christ, a heaven,' saith the faith that is good; 'for the word of God doth say so. The way to this God, and this heaven, is by Christ; for the word of God doth say so. If I run not to this God by this Christ, this heaven shall never be my portion; for the word of God doth say so.' So then, thus believing makes the man come to God by him. His thus believing then it is that carries him away from this world, that makes him trample upon this world, and that gives him the victory over this world. "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood and it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth."

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2. Now, if this be true, that faith, true faith, is so forci

ble a thing, as to take a man from his seat of ease, and make him come to God by Christ, as afore; then is it not truly inferred from hence, that they that come not to God by Christ have no faith? What! is man such a fool as to believe things, and yet not look after them; to believe great things, and yet not to concern himself with them? Who would knowingly go over a pearl, and yet not count it worth stooping for? Believe thou art what thou art; believe hell is what it is; believe death and judgment are coming as they are; and believe that the Father and the Son are, as by the Holy Ghost in the word they are described,—and still sit in thy sins, if thou canst. Thou canst not sit still. Faith is forcible. in the word, upon the teaching of God in the word. And it pleases God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe; for believing makes them heartily close in with and embrace what by the word is set before them, because it seeth the reality of them.

Faith is grounded upon the voice of God

Shall God speak to man's soul, and shall man believe? Shall man believe what God says, and nothing at all regard it? It cannot be. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." And we know that when faith is come, it purifies the heart of what is opposite to God, and the salvation of the soul.

So then those men that are at ease in a sinful course, or that come not to God by Christ, are such as have no faith, and must therefore perish with the vile and unbelievers.

The whole world is divided into two sorts of men, believers and unbelievers. The godly are called believers. And why believers? but because they are they that have given credit to the great things of the gospel of God. These believers are here in the text called also comers, or they that come to God by Christ, because who so believes, will come; for coming is a fruit of faith in the habit, or, if you will, it is

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faith in exercise; yet faith must have a being in the soul, before the soul put it into act.

This, therefore, further evidences, that they that come not, have no faith-are not believers, belong not to the household of faith, and must perish. "For he that believeth not, shall be damned."

Nor will it be any boot to say, 'I believe there is a God, and a Christ;' for still thy sitting still doth demonstrate, that either thou liest in what thou sayest, or that thou believest with a worse than a false faith. But the object of my faith (you say) is true.' I answer, So is the object of the faith of devils; for they believe that there is one God, and one Christ; yet their faith, as to the root and exercise of it, notwithstanding that, is no such faith as is that faith that saves, or that is intended in the text, and that by which men come to God through Christ.

Wherefore still, O thou slothful one, thou deceivest thyself! Thy not coming to God by Christ, declareth to thy face, that thy faith is not good, consequently that thou feedest on ashes, and thy deceived heart has turned thee aside, that thou canst not deliver thy soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?

Thirdly, Is there a man that comes to God by Christ? Thence I infer, that the world to come is better than this; yea, so much better, as to quit cost, and bear charges of coming to God, from this, by Christ, to that. Though there is a world to come; yet if it was no better than this, one had as good stay here, as seek that; or if it were better than this, and would bear charges if a man left this for that, and that was all, still the one would be as good as the other. But the man that comes to God by Christ, has chosen the world that is infinitely good, a world betwixt which and this there can be no comparison. This must be granted, because he that comes to God by Christ, is said to have made the best choice, even to choose a city that has foundations.

There are several things that make it manifest enough, that he that comes to God by Christ, has made the best market, or chosen the best world.

1. That is the world which God commendeth, but this, that he slighteth and contemneth. Hence that is called the kingdom of God, but this an evil world. Now, let us conclude, that since God made both, he is able to judge which of the two is best; yea, best able so to judge thereof. I choose the rather to refer you to the judgment of God in this matter; for should I put you upon asking of him, that is coming to God by Christ, as to this, perhaps you would say, he is as little able to give an account of this matter as yourselves. But I hope you think God knows, and therefore I refer you to the judgment of God, which you have in the scriptures of truth. Heaven is his throne, and the earth. is his footstool. I hope you will say here is some difference. The Lord is the God of that; the devil the god and prince of this. Thus also it appears there is some difference between them.

2. That world, and those that are counted worthy of it, shall all be everlasting; but so shall not this nor the inhabitants of it. The earth, with the works thereof, shall be burned up, and the men that are of it shall die in like manBut Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: they shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end. This world, with the lovers of it, will end in a burning hell; but the world to come fadeth not

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away.

3. The world that we are now in, has its best comforts mixed either with crosses or curses; but that to come with neither. There shall be no more curse; and as for crosses, all tears shall be wiped from the eyes of them that dwell there. There will be nothing but ravishing pleasures and holy. There will be no cessation of joys, nor any speck of

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pollution. "In thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore."

There men shall be made like angels; neither can they die any more. There shall they behold the face of God and his Son, and move on in the enjoyment of them for

ever.

There men shall see themselves beyond all misery, and shall know that it will be utterly impossible that either any thing like sorrow, or grief, or sickness, or discontent, should touch them more.

There men shall be rewarded of God for what they have done and suffered, according to his will, for his sake; there they shall eat and drink their comforts, and wear them to their everlasting consolation.

They are all kings that go to that world, and so shall be proclaimed there. They shall also be crowned with crowns, and they shall wear crowns of life and glory, crowns of everlasting joy, crowns of loving-kindness; yea, in that day the Lord of hosts himself shall be for a crown of glory to those that are his people. Heb. ii. 7; Isa. xxxv. 10; Psalm ciii. 4; Isa. xxviii. 5. Now if that world (though no more could be said for it than is said in these few lines) is not infinitely better far than what the present world is, I have missed my thoughts. But the coming man, the man that comes to God by Christ, is satisfied, knows what he does; and if his way, all his way thither, were strewed with burning coals, he would choose, God helping him, to tread that path, rather than to have his portion with them that perish.

Fourthly, If there be a world to come, and such a way to it, so safe and good, and if God is there to be enjoyed by them that come to him by Christ; then this shows the great madness of the most of men; madness, I say, of the highest degree; for that they come not to God by Christ, that they be inheritors of the world to come. It is a right character which Solomon gives of them: "The heart," saith he,

may

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