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(10) The manner in which faith and its works exelude boafting, may be illuftrated by a comparifon. A beggar lies dying at your door, you offer him a cordial, he takes it, revives, and works. - A deferter is going to be hot, you bring him a pardon from the king, if he will receive it with grateful humility, he does fo, joins his regiment, and fights with fuch courage that he is promoted. Now in thefe cafes it is evident, that pharisaic † boasting is excluded. If the beggar lives ever fo long, and works ever fo hard-if the deferter fights ever fo manfully and is raised ever fo high; yet, they can never fay, that their doings have procured them the life, which they enjoy; for, before they did fuch works, that life was gracioufly given, or restored to them, upon the easy terms of confidently taking a remedy, and humbly accepting a pardon offered. The application is eafy: By our fallen nature we are conceived in fin, and children of wrath: God freely gives us the light of life in Jefus Chrift; faith without neceffity humbly receives it, and works by it; the believer therefore, can never be fo unreasonable, and ungrateful, as to fuppofe, that his working merited him the light of life, by which he began to work righteousness so long as he deferves the name of a believer, he knows, he feels, that his faith is in the FIRST place a mere receiver. What haft thou, that thou

haft

MEMORANDUM.] At the bottom of page 162, I have faid, that "The genuine feed of the word is always good, always full of divine energy.' I defire the candid reader to read the following lines as more particularly-expreffive of my meaning.

The word is Truth; and Truth, like the fun, is always efficacious where its light penetrates. But I would by no means infinuate, that the truth may not, like the fun, shine more brightly and powerfully at one time, than at another: The word of truth, however, always performs (tho' more or less fenfibly) that whereunto God fends it; being always a favour of life unto life to them that believe, or of death unto death to wilful unbelievers, according to the grand decree of conditional election and reprobation, He that believeth, &c. fhall be faved, and be that believeth not shall be damned.

There is an evangelical boafting, which St. Paul recommends to others, and indulges himself: See the note, page 117.

haft not received, roars like thunder in the ears of a lively faith, and like lightning ftrikes dead the pharifaic boast.

(11) I fay, that faith is in the FIRST place a mere receiver: this deferves attention. If we confider faith as a conduit-pipe, which at one end receives the truth and power of God, and at the other end refunds thofe living ftreams to water the garden of the Lord; we may with propriety compare that mother-grace to the pipe of a watering pot, which, at the internal, unfeen opening receives the water that is in the pot; and at the external, vifible perforations returns it, and forms artificial showers over the drooping plants. According to the doctrine of grace, maintained by the Solifidians, faith does nothing but receive the grace of God thro' Chrift; and according to the doctrine of works, maintained by the moralifts, faith is a mere beftower: but, according to the gospel of Chrift, which embraces and connects the two extremes of truth, Faith is firft an humble, paffive receiver, and then a chearful active beftower: It receives grace and truth, and returns love and good works. In that refpect it refembles the heart, which continually receives the blood from the veins, and returns it into the arteries. If the heart ceafes either to receive, or to return the blood (no matter which) its motion and our animal life are foon at an end: and if faith ceases either to receive grace, or to return good works, its motion and its life foon terminate in spiritual death, according to the doctrine of St. James. If the Solifidians and moralifts candidly looked at faith in this rational and fcriptural light, they would foon embrace the whole gofpel, and one another. By confidering faith as a RECEIVER [according to the first gospel axiom ] Honeftus would avoid the pharijaic extreme; and by viewing it as a BESTOWER, [according to the fecond gofpel-axiom] Zelotes would avoid the antinomian delufion ; and both would jointly recommend the humble, chearful, confiftent paffiveness and activity of bible-believers.

(12) If

(12) If we receive the witness of men, says St. John, the witness of God is greater: for, under the chriftian difpenfation, this is the witness of God, which he hath teftified of his Son: He that believeth on the Son of God hath the teftimony in himself: but he that believeth not God, hath MADE HIM A LIAR, because he believeth not the record, that God gave of his Son. Upon these awful words I raise the following argument. If a state of abfolute doubt is quite unnatural: - if it is almost impoffible to keep the balance of our judgment unturned for one hour, with respect to all faving truths and damning lies :-if the stream of life, which hurries us along, calls us every moment to action:-if we continually do good or bad works :-if good works certainly spring from faving faith, and bad works from deftructive unbelief: if skepticks are only fo in imagination, theory, and profeffion :-if our daily conduct demonftrates whether our heart inclines MOST to the lies of Satan, or to the truths of God: — - and if the moment we practically reject God's truths, we embrace the lies of the God of this world, and by that means take him for our God :- if, I fay, this is the cafe, what reafonable man can be furprized to hear the mild Jefus fay, He that believeth not shall be damnedCan there be a greater fin -a fin more productive of all iniquity, and more horrid, than to make the lying Devil a god, and the true God a liar? Nevertheless, dreadful to fay! this double crime is actually committed by all, that make an act of wilful, practical unbelief; and the commiffion of it is indirectly recommended by all thofe, who decry the doctrine of Salvation by faith.

Laftly: If our first parents fell by BELIEVING the grofs lies told them by the Serpent; is God unreafonable to raise us by making us BELIEVE the great truths peculiar to our dispensation, that the divine leaven of fincerity and truth may counterwork, and at last expel the fatanic leaven of malice and wickedness? Who ever thought it abfurd in a phyfician to proportion the remedy to the difeafe; the antidote to the poison ?

S

And

1

And why should even the incarnation of the Son of God, appear a means too wonderful for an end fo important? If Apollyon, the Prince of darkness, had malice enough to incarnate himself, and affume the form of a ferpent to deceive man ; why should not the Saviour of the world, the healing antitype of the brazen ferpent, incarnate himself alfo, and affume the form of a man to atone for, undeceive, and rettore mankind Why should not the living TRUTH, the Seed of the woman, bruise the proud, lying Serpent's head with his celestial club, the humble, bloody crofs ? In a word, Why should it be thought incredible, that the Son of God, who, as our Creator, is far more nearly related to us than our natural parents, should have graciously flooped as low as the human nature to redeem us when Satan wantonly ftooped as low as the beastly nature to tempt us? On the contrary, is it not abfurd to fuppofe, that hellish, wanton malice has done more to defroy, than heavenly, creating love to fave the children of men? And is it not highly reafonable to believe, that an operative faith in divine truths, is as powerful a means of obedience and falvation, as an operative faith in fatanic lies is of difobedience and damnation? For my part, the more I compare the genuine gofpel with the nature of things, the more I admire their harmony; wondering equally at the prejudices of thofe hafty profeffors, who pour perpetual contempt upon reafon, to keep their irrational opinions in countenance; and at the unreafonableness of those pretended votaries of reason, who fuppofe, that the doctrine of falvation by faith is incompatible with good fenfe.

"But [fays an objector] if unfeigned faith in the light-if a cordial belief of the truth instrumentally turns us from the power of Satan to God; why have "you published polemical tracts against the Solifidians, whofe favourite doctrine is, Believe :-he that "believeth hath everlasting life?"

66

ANS. By the preceding pages it is evident, that we do not differ from the Solifidians when they preach

Salvation

falvation by faith in a rational and fcriptural manner. So long as they do this, we wish them good luck in the name of the Lord; and I once more offer them my defpifed pulpit to preach, that we are faved by grace thro' faith, not of ourselves, it is the gift of God; provided they will not oppofe this doctrine to that of the apostle laid down in the Scriptural Effay Nay, I do more. I publicly return them my fincere thanks for the bold ftand they have made for faith, when the floods of pharifaic ungodliness lifted up their voice against that mother-grace, and threatned to destroy her with all her offspring. But alas! how dear have they made us pay for that fervice, when they have afferted, or infinuated, that true faith is inamiffible, that it can live in an heart totally depraved, that a man's faith can be good when his actions are bad, deteftable, diabolical; in a word, that true christians may go any length in fin, may plunge into adultery, murder, or inceft, and even proceed to the open worfhip of devils, like Solomon, without lofing their title to a throne of glory, and their juftifying, fan&tifying, faving faith.!:

J

This they have done, in flat oppofition to our Lord's doctrine good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit for every tree is known by its own fruit, Luke vi. 43. This they do ftill, in direct contrariety to confcience and experience, which agree to depofe, that as we bow to the Spirit of Truth or to the Spirit of error, we become either children of light or children of darkness :

And this, fome of them feem determined to do, to the ftumbling of the judicious, the deceiving of the fimple, and the hardening of infidels; notwithstanding our x11th article, which ftrongly guards the doctrine of faith against their folifidian error. "Good works" [fays our church in that truly anti-calvinistic article] "do" [at this prefent time] "Spring out † S 2

NECES

+ Altho' good works fpring out neceffarily of a lively faith, yet a lively faith does not necessarily spring out of our hearts, I beg leave to

explain