(7) If every internal good work (fuppofe a fincere operative defire to love my enemy for God's fake) neceffarily fprings from a good principle, that is, from true faith; it follows, that fo long as I confiftently continue in the fame difpofition, my principle of action is good, and I am (fo far) a good man, according to the standard of one or another of the gospel-difpenfations. On the other hand, if any one inward, bad work (fuppofe a malicious defire to hurt my neighbour) fprings from a bad principle, it follows alfo, that fo long as I continue in that bad difpofition, what ever degree of fanctity I may pretend to, my principle of action is bad, I am a wicked man of the pharifaic or of the antinomian order. To conclude: (8) As by fuppreffing the beating of the heart, you may ftop all the pulfes; fo by fuppreffing the act of faith, you may put a flop to all good works. On the other hand, as by cutting the main arteries you may put an end to the motion of the heart: fo, by fuppreffing the good motions caufed by faith, you may put an end to the life of faith, and deftroy the new creature in Christ Jesus. The REASONABLENESS of the doctrine of salvation by faith is farther evinced by a variety of arguments.How much we are indebted to the Solifidians, for having firmly food up in defence of FAITH: How dearly they have made us pay for that service, when they have jo enforced our x1th article, which guards falvation by faith, as to make void the x11th, which guards morality. And why the overpowering Splendor of TRUTH is qualified by fome fhades. SHO HOULD fome readers ftill think, that it is unrea fònable to dweli firft upon faith, and to infiit more upon it than upon the other works and graces, which adorn adorn the life and character of a chriftian; to remove their fcruples, and to vindicate more fully the fundamental doctrine of Salvation by faith, I prefent them with the following remarks. (1) If true Faith is the root that produces hope, charity, and fincere obedience, as the preceding fection evinces, is it not reasonable principally to urge the neceffity of believing aright? The end of all preaching is undoubtedly to plant the tree of evange lical obedience; and how can that tree be planted, but by its root? Was a gardener ever charged with unreasonableness, for not fetting a tree by the branches ? (2) If faith working by love is the heart of true religion, fhould we not bestow our chief attention and care upon it? Suppofe you were a phyfician, and attended a patient, who had an impoftume in his ftomach and another on his hand; would you do honour to your skill, if overlooking the internal mischief, you confined your attention to the external ulcer? men, (3) The most excellent gift of God to man, next to the invaluable gifts of his Son and Spirit, is that of the faving Truth. Nay, the Son of God, in his prophetic character, came only to difplay the Truth. He was manifefted in the flesh to be its herald among St. Paul tells us, that Chrift witnessed a good confeffion before Pilate; and St. John informs us, that part of this good confeffion ran thus: To THIS END was I born, and for THIS CAUSE came 1 into the world, that I fhould bear witness unto THE TRUTH. Now, if bearing witness to the TRUTH was a great cause, and a peculiar end of our Lord's coming into the world; if the Spirit itfelf is called the Spirit of truth, because his grand office is to reveal and feal the truth; if truth is no better than error to us, till we receive it by faith; and if the fcripture declares four times, that The just fhall LIVE by his FAITH, a declaration this, which St. Paul confirms by his own experience, when he says, I LIVE by FAITH; is it not evident, that when we practically reject the doctrine of faith, we reject life, together with all the bleffings which are brought to light by by the gospel; a gofpel disbelieved being undoubtedly a gospel REJECTED. (4) Our feelings and conduct greatly depend upon our apprehenfions of things. A falfe report that your fon is dead reaches your ears; you believe it, and pangs of grief distract your breast. Soon after a true account of his being drowned is brought to you; you difbelieve it, and you remain unaffected.-A diamond by moon-light glitters at your feet; you think, it is only a glow-worm, and this mistake prevents your flooping to pick it up. A glow-worm fhines at fome distance; you fancy, that it is a diamond, and you run to it with a degree of hope and joy proportionable to the degree of your vain confidence. The God of truth is an infinite, fpiritual diamond, if I may use the expreffion; and yet, fo faint are our ideas of his excellence, that we overlook him, and madly run after deceitful objects, the brighteit of which are but glowworms to the Father of lights. Nothing therefore but a firm belief of the truth, ftamping our fouls with juft apprehenfions of things, and fixing in us a ftrong perfaation of their intrinfick worth or vanity, can rectify our judgment, and make us regulate our conduct according to the dictates of God's word, which are invariably one with the truth, and with the nature of things. (5) When St. Paul exhorts his converts to the purfuit of things honeft, juft, pure, lovely, &c. he mentions firft with great propriety whatsoever things are TRUE. For, as foon as obedient faith allows Truth to fit upon the throne, there is an end of mental anarchy: All things refume their proper ranks and places. Creatures in a great degree difappear before their Creator; earth, before heaven ; and time, before eternity. Thus Satan's charm is broken; God begins to be to us, what he is in himself, all in all; and when we fee him fuch, if our faith is lively and practical, we treat him as fuch: We anfwer the end of our creation: Truth prevails: Satan falls as lightning from heaven: Man is man ; and God is God. ; (6) If truth, next to God, is the most powerful thing in the world: if we can have no communion with God, but by the medium of truth: if falfhood is the rankeft poifon in hell; and if we take a draught of this poifon, as often as we take in a capital religious error; can you reasonably explode the doctrine of Salvation by faith, fince the office of living faith is to expel the poifon of destructive error, and to receive the reviving, healing, ftrengthening cordial of gospel-truth? (7) If an unfeigned faith in the Truths, which God reveals under one or an other of his evangelical difpenfations, is the inftrumental cause of all our good works; whilft a cordial confent to one or more of Satan's lies, is the parent of all our bad actions :-if these two springs move every wheel of righteousness and of iniquity in the world; is it not highly confiftent with reason to mind them firft? Would you not pity your watch-maker, if he fo regarded the hand and dial-plate of your watch, as to forget the wheelwork and fpring? And can you approve the method of Honeftus, who infifts upon good works, without ever touching upon the principles of fincere obedience, and upon faith, which is the spring, that fets all in motion. (8) Again, if Abraham, by not ftaggering at the promife of God thro' UNBELIEF, and by being strong in FAITH, gave glory to God, and did fet to his feal that God is true: — if you cannot honour a fuperior more, than by receiving his every word with refpectful confidence, and moving at his every beck with obedient alacrity-and if faith thus honours God, why fhould you refufe it the first place among the graces, which fupport and adorn the church militant? Especially fince the Lord declares, that the PURE in HEART fhall fee God, and that our HEARTS are PURIFIED by FAITH? -And fince the fcriptures tektify, that without HOLINESS no man fhall see the Lord, and that we are SANCTIFIED thro' FAITH that is in him? (9) All fulness dwells in God: creatures abstracted from the divine plenitude are mere emptinefs. Rational creatures, in their most perfect state, are only mo ral # 1 ral veffels filled with the grace of God, and reflecting (ro) The 66 To eftablish the doctrine of the gospel-difpenfations, to fhow that faving truth, in its various manifeftations, is the object of faving faith, I need only prove, that a man, in order to his falvation, is bound to believe at one time, what he was not bound to believe at an other. Take one inftance out of many. If St. Peter had died just after he had been pronounced blessed for acknowledging, that our Lord was the Son of God, he could not have been curfed with a Depart from me," &c. he would have been faved: and, in that cafe, he would have obtained falvation without believing one tittle about our Lord's refurrection; [might I not alfo fay, about his crucifixion? See note 13, P. 43] and nevertheless St. Paul, a few years after, justly reprefented that article as effential to the falvation of those, to whom it is revealed: Ir thou shalt BELIEVE with thy heart, that God hath RAISED the Lord Fefus from the dead, thou shalt be SAVED, Rom. x. 9. Few people, I think, can read the acts of the apoftles, without, feeing, that the numerous converfions wrought by St. Peter's preaching, were wrought by the force of this truth, "God has raised up that Jefus, whom you have crucified:" A victorious truth this, which would have been a grofs untruth three months before the day of pentecoft.-Nay, what is at one time an article of faving faith, may at an other time become an article of the most confirmed unbelief: Thus, the expectation of the Meffiah, which was a capital article of the faith of the ancient Ifraelites, is now the buttress of the babel of modern Jews. The property of faith is then to make our hearts bow to the truth, as it is manifefted to us; it being evident, that God never blamed the children of men, for not believing what was never revealed to them. Μεμο |