"worketh by love.""

Now "love is the fulfilling

"of the law," and likewise the principal fruit of the Spirit; God is LOVE, and heaven is love and can a faith not at all holy excite in us the most holy and spiritual of all exercises of the rational soul? I say excite, not produce: for in strict propriety, the production of every holy thing must be ascribed entirely to the Holy Spirit; and faith could not possibly work by holy love, if the heart continued unregenerate, and in a state of enmity against God.

The views, which saving faith gives the soul of those objects that revelation brings to our knowledge, are suited to call forth the most lively exercises of love to Christ, and the most delightful admiration of his glorious excellencies, and his compassion to lost sinners: they will excite also an ardent desire after the nearest union and communion with him, a decided preference of his favour to all earthly objects, a fear of coming short of this highest privilege and advantage, gratitude proportioned to our hope, zeal for his glory, attachment to his cause, and a peculiar regard to all which stands related to him or bears. his image. This love of Christ is substantially the same with the love of God: for we sinners know, approach, believe, trust, love, and honour the Father, only in his beloved Son. The same exercises of faith call forth our love to our bre Gal. v. 6, 13, 14.

thren, and to all men, according to the precepts. and example of our beloved Redeemer: and thus faith working by love manifests itself in all godliness, righteousness, temperance, kindness, and beneficence. Even repentance, in all its exercises to the end of life, is excited by a belief of the divine testimony in one way or other; while some degree of true repentance is necessary to explicit faith in Christ. In proportion to the increase and vigour of living faith, will be the growth and ardour of all holy affections, and our persevering fruitfulness in all real good works. The more clearly and constantly the believer contemplates a crucified Saviour, and scripturally relies on him with earnest application of heart for all the blessings of salvation; the more humble, spiritual, obedient, zealous, loving, harmless, pure, self-denying, and actively beneficent will he be.

And the reason of this is, because true faith, springing from regeneration, co-exists in the heart with all other gracious dispositions and evidencing to the soul one part of divine truth after another, as circumstances require and occasions are given, it excites them all by turns into more vigorous and sensible exercise. It is, however, an unedifying curious speculation to dispute which of them in order of time has the priority: seeing "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," quickening the sinner who had been dead in sin, is at once the Author and Source of them all. The varied VOL. IV.

U

experiences of different persons, with the numberless undiscoverable, and generally unnoticed, circumstances, which cause some first to attend to one, and some to another, of the feelings of their own minds, will certainly lead them to different and even contrary determinations, according to the schemes of doctrine which they severally adopt.

It is very commonly stated, that faith purifies the heart' but the language of Scripture is more accurate :-namely, that " God purifieth the heart "by faith." Having enabled the sinner, by his new-creating grace, cordially to believe the gospel; by the varied actings of that faith he excites every holy affection; and as these prevail and gather strength, all unholy desires and propensities are dethroned, hated, mortified, and gradually abolished. In entire agreement with this, yet taking another view of the subject, the apostle Peter says, "Seeing ye have purified your souls, "in obeying the truth, through the Spirit, unto

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unfeigned love of the brethren; see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently." They were active in this purifying of their souls; but it was effected by obeying the truth; and this was done by the grace of the Holy Spirit. For "The fruit of the Spirit is love." No man, who scripturally holds the doctrine of regeneration, will ascribe the "purifying of the heart" to faith,

Acts xv. 9. 1 Pet. i. 22.

as to its efficient cause; but faith is the spiritual organ of sight and perception, through which invisible things are so shewn to the soul by the Holy Spirit, as to effect, through his continual agency, a gradual renovation. Faith (being itself the gift of God and the operation of the Spirit,) seeks and receives those heavenly influences, by which the seeds of universal holiness, sown in regeneration, spring forth and grow to maturity: according to the declaration of St. Paul; We all, "with open face, beholding as in a glass the "the glory of the Lord, are changed into the "same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord ;" and thus we are gradually purified from the remainder of our proud, carnal, and selfish passions and propensities.

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*

Similar to this is the language of St. John, "This is the love of God, that we keep his com"mandments, and his commandments are not

"grievous. For whatsoever is born of God over"cometh the world; and this is the victory that "overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is "he that overcometh the world, but he that be"lieveth that Jesus is the Son of God?" The apostle ascribes these effects, of loving God, keeping his commandments, and overcoming the world, to the faith of those who are born of God; and he evidently speaks of this faith as essential to that which is born of God. Such a faith, working by holy love, gives the soul a decided victory over the love of

"God." ((
"offered Isaac."

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worldly objects, the fear of men, a false shame and regard to character, and every carnal and selfish principle; and it thus renders obedience not only practicable, but delightful. Thus St. Paul exclaims, "God forbid that I should glory, save in "the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the "world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.' He also shews us that all the self-denying, courageous, and zealous obedience of the Old Testament saints sprang from faith, as its immediate source. By faith Enoch walked with By faith Abraham obeyed,"-and By faith Moses refused to be "called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, "than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; "esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches "than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect "unto the recompence of reward. By faith he "forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the 'king; for he endured, as seeing him who is in"visible." Let any sober and pious mind determine whether the judgment, choice, and purpose of faith, in these cases, was not spiritual and holy. -In many instances, the particular exercise of faith, to which the obedience is ascribed, was entirely distinct from reliance on Christ for salvation: but even here faith had the same general mature; it cordially received the testimony of

'Gal..vi. 14.