Imatges de pàgina
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Ifrael utterly to abhor him. Prov. xxvi. 25. When he fpeaketh fair, believe him not. Habuk. i. 5. I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. John iv. 21. Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerufalem, worship the Father. James ii. 19. Thou believeft that there is one God; the devils also believe, and tremble. I may venture to say, if Chriftians had confulted fyftems lefs, and Scripture and their own experience more, they would not have affixed to believing in other paffages, a fense entirely different from what it bears in these.

Faith purifies the heart, Acts xv. 9. worketh by love, Gal. v. 6. and difcovers itself fincere by the performance of good works, Ja. ii. 18. Faith therefore is not holiness, love, or new obe-dience, unless the effect is the fame with the cause, or the evidence with the thing proved. He who confounds faith with any of thefe, might as well plead, that there is no difference between the fun in the firmament, and the fruits of the earth, brought forth and ripened by his genial rays or between natural life, and the actions of a living man. And yet many writers, on the nature of faith, feem to have forgot that it is one question, what is faith; and another, what is infeparably connected with it, and what are the fruits that fpring from it?

That faving faith is properly an affent, is further evident, because it is often termed knowledge Ifa. liii. 11. By his knowledge shall my righteous fervant juftify many. John xvii. 3. This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou haft fent. 1 Tim. ii. 4. Who will have all men to be faved, and to

come

come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Pet. i. 2, 3. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you, through the knowledge of God, and of Jefus our Lord; according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to virtue and glory. In thefe paffages knowledge muft mean faith, because the diftinguishing properties, attendants, and confequences of faith, are afcribed to it, in them. In other Scriptures, knowledge means a clear undoubted perfuafion. Thus, 2 Cor. v. 11. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we perfuade men. I Theff. v. 2. For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord fo cometh, as a thief in the night. 2 Tim. i. 12. I know whom I have believed, and I am perfuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. 1 John ii. 21. I have not written unto you, becaufe ye know not the truth: but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Why then should not knowledge mean perfuafion, in the Scriptures, where it is put for faith?

$2. Other ideas of faith, fubftituted in the place of perfuafion, are better calculated to flatter the pride of man, that his acceptance with God is founded on fomething worthy and excellent in the frame of his mind, in the choice of his will, and in the byafs of his affections. For that very reason, thefe ideas must be falfe. The office affigned to faith in the plan of falvation, is affigned it for this purpose, that all pretences to merit may be borne down, and the fovereignty and freedom of God's grace in bestowing falvation may appear. Rom. iv. 16. "Therefore it

"is of faith, that it might be by grace." Faith has no moral efficacy towards procuring our pardon and acceptance.

To this reafoning an able writer has objected, that a felf-righteous heart may make a righteoufness of a paffive, as well as of an active faith, and be as proud of his paffivity, as the Pharifee was of his fafting twice in the week.-But, is there not a mighty difference, between fafting, in which you abftain from what is defirable, or fuffer what is painful, from a free choice which you imagine virtuous; and the affenting to a truth, when that affent is conftrained by evidence. If one is proud of the laft, may he not with equal reafon be proud, that he believes the fun is in the firmament, when his eyes are struck with the meridian fplendor of that glorious luminary?

§ 3. Affent or perfuafion is the only notion of faith, which, without ftraining, will apply to every Scripture, where any kind of faith is mentioned. Let the unbyaffed reader confult his Bible, and judge for himself.

To leave no room for difpute, an inspired author has given us a description of the faith by which the juft live. Heb. xi. 1. "Now faith is the substance

of things hoped for, the evidence of things not "feen." While worldly men fee through a falfe medium, even things prefent and vifible, and are blind to their true nature and confequences; faith renders invifible things vifible, and abfent things prefent. It gives fo lively and realizing a reprefentation of things hoped for, that they feem, as it were, actually exifting before us. Our perfuafion of them is as undoubted, as if we saw them with our bodily eyes, or had a mathematical demonftration of their reality. With Ste

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phen, faith fees the heavens open, and Jefus ftanding at the right-hand of God: nay, with Paul, it is caught up into the third heaven, and hears the praises of the redeemed. Its piercing eyes penetrate into that within the vail, whether the Forerunner has for us entered: and there behold the King in his beauty, and the land that is yet afar off. Nor is there in this any thing incredible. When we are firmly perfuaded of any thing, in its own nature important and affecting, and appearing fo to us, the mind is naturally led to contemplate it fo fteadily, that it impreffes us, in fome measure, as if it were already exifting, prefent with us, and visible to our bodily eye. Faith is like thofe glaffes, which give important and undoubted, though not full and distinct difcoveries of objects, which our fight, without fuch affiftance, could not perceive.

Dr. Owen, in his Catechifm, has judiciously decided the question, I am now canvaffing. Faith (fays he) is in the understanding, in respect of its being and fubfiftence: in the will and heart, in refpect of its effectual workings.

4. It does not invalidate my reasoning, that it is faid, Rom. x. 10. "For with the heart "man believeth unto righteoufnefs." The heart is there oppofed, not to the affent of the underftanding, but to the profeffion of the lips; for it immediately follows," And with the mouth "confeffion is made unto falvation." Nor are other places wanting, in the facred oracles, where the heart means the intellectual powers. Thus Exod. xxviii. 3. "Thou shalt fpeak unto "all the wife-hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's

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garments." Deut. xxix. 4. Yet the Lord

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"hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to fee, and ears to hear unto this day." 1 Kings iv. 29. "And God gave Solomon wifdom and understanding exceeding much, and largenefs of heart, even as the fand that is on "the fea-fhore."

SECTION II.

$1. SUPPOSING it fufficiently proved, that

the general idea of faving faith is affent or perfuafion; two things are neceffary to be examined on this fubject. First, What are the truths to which saving faith affents? Secondly, If there is any thing in the nature and foundation of the affent of faving faith, specifically different from the affent of unconverted finners.

It is proper, in the first place, to investigate what are the truths to which faving faith neceffarily affents. We are told, Rom. x. 17. “ Faith "cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word "of God." And 1 John v. 10. "He that be"lieveth on the Son of God, hath the witness "in himself: he that believeth not God, hath "made him a liar, because he believeth not the "record that God gave of his Son." Faith therefore is a perfuafion of fomething teftified in the word of God, which was true in itself, and of which fuch evidence was laid before us, that we had ground to believe it true, even while yet we did not difcern that evidence, and actually believe it: nay, which would have remained true, though we had continued to reject the divine teftimony. We may here apply the words of Paul, Rom. iii. 3. "What if fome do not "believe?

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