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"believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith " of God of none effect." Faith therefore can"not be a perfuafion, that Chrift died for me in particular, or that my fins are forgiven through his blood. For this is no where teftified in the word of God. No unbeliever has fufficient evidence of this laid before him. And, if he dies in unbelief, it is a falfhood. When the Scripture speaks of our being juftified by faith, to fuppofe this means, we obtain juftification by a perfuafion we are already juftified, is ridiculously abfurd. I fhall fay no more of that hypothefis, as feveral accurate writers have fufficiently expofed it (a), and many good men who have efpoufed it, seem to entertain a fentiment very different from that, which their words, taken in their obvious and natural fenfe, certainly convey. Faith then is an affent to fomething revealed, and that was true, previous to our believing it.

2. Further. Faith is not a general implicit affent to Chriftianity, or to what is contained in the facred oracles. Men may have that, without understanding, what in Chriftianity is most important. But faving faith, is a knowing what and in whom we believe, 1 Tim. i. 12. There is a feeing the Son, which, in order of nature, precedes believing on him, John vi. 40. God reveals by his Spirit, thefe myfteries of divine love, which eye hath not feen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, fo that Chriftians know the things freely given

(a) See Lampii Differtationes Amft. 1737, t. I. Diff. 14. de fiducia. Prefident Dickinfon's Familiar Letters. Letter 11. and Mr. Bellamy's Theron, Paulinus & Afpafio.

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them of God, which natural men cannot know, because they are fpiritually difcerned, 1 Cor. ii. 9-14. The fpirit takes of the things of Chrift, and fhews them to men, John xvi. 14. and opens mens eyes, and turns them from darkness to light, that they may receive an inheritance among them that are fanctified by faith in Jefus, Acts xxvi. 18. The only begotten Son, which is in the bofom of the father, declares him, John i. 18. and manifefts his name to the men given him out of the world, John xvii. 6. fo that they all know God from the leaft to the greateft, Heb. viii. 11. And indeed, faith could not have that influence on the temper and conduct, which the Scripture afcribes to it, if it did not include fome degree of knowledge and apprehenfion of what is believed. For truths, however interesting in their own nature, can no how engage the will and affections, unless they are understood. Our Lord charges the Jews, John v. 47. with not believing Mofes's writings. They did not call in queftion their divine infpiration; but the moft important truths contained in them, they rejected as falfe. He therefore believes in our Lord's fense of the word, who rightly understands the divine teftimony, and receives and credits it in its genuine meaning, not mistaking, altering, or adding to the fenfe of it.

$3. No man thoroughly understands the whole of the Chriftian revelation, and therefore no man affents to it, ot with a general implicit affent. I acknowledge, an elief of any truth, known to be a part of divine revelation, is a damnable fin. But is, therefore, the headach and death of the fon of the Shunamite, and Elifha's reftoring him to life again, as effential an article of faith, as

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that Chrift died for our offences, and rofe again for our juftification? Or is ignorance, that Giddalti was the fon of Heman, or Noah the fister of Hoglah, as dangerous, as ignorance that Jefus is the Son of God? The Romanifts therefore err, who make divine revelation, in general, the object of faving faith. Such a general implicit affent to divine revelation, without understanding what it contains, will not produce conviction of fin in the thoughtless and fecure, will not command peace of conscience to the wounded in spirit, and will excite no man to holiness of heart and life. An implicit affent to the Bible, and an implicit affent to the Alcoran; a believing an unknown fomething, which I call Chriftianity, or an unknown fomething which I call Mahometanifm, are nearly allied, and equally useless.

If it is abfurd to fuppofe, that every thing in the Bible is fundamental, it is ftill more abfurd to imagine, that nothing is fo. A religion, in which nothing is neceffary, muft itself be needlefs. And therefore in the ignorance, or neglect, of fuch religion, there can be little harm.

What are the truths thus neceffary to be believed, can be learned with certainty only from the facred oracles. And here our enquiries are happily reduced to a narrow compass, as there is one radical comprehenfive truth, affent to which is reprefented as faving faith, and which suppofes, includes, or neceffarily infers every other truth thus fundamental. That truth is expreffed in a variety of language, in different paffages of Scripture, and will be beft learned by surveying fome of them.

S4. I begin with Scriptures, in which this comprehenfive fundamental article is termed The Truth, to intimate, that of all truths it is the

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moft neceffary and important. John i. 17. "The law was given by Mofes, but the grace and "the truth came by Jefus Chrift," i. e. All faving mercies are difpenfed through the blood and merits of Chrift: and he hath given a clear revelation of these counfels of divine wisdom for man's falvation, which, during the Old Teftament difpenfation, were hid under obfcure prophecies and figures. The truth may particularly refer to what was afferted, ver. 14, 16. "The "word was made flefh, and dwelt among us

(and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and "truth. And of his fulnefs have all we received, and grace for grace."

John viii. 31, 32. "Then faid Jefus to those "Jews, which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my difciples indeed; and ye fhall know the truth, and the truth fhall make you free." Here it is natural to fuppofe that Chrift by my word, ver. 31. and the truth, ver. 32. intends the truth, he had been just then uttering: that he was in the beginning of all things, ver. 25; (b) and not of this world, ver. 23; and confequently prior to and diftinct from every creature; and that he was fent by the Father to be the light

(b) There is confiderable difficulty in our Lord's words. John viii. 25. την αρχήν ο τι και λάλω υμιν. There feem two ellipfes in the firft part of thefe words to be thus fupplied, xava the apxay siμl, &c. And the paffage may be thus rendered. "In the beginning I am, which is that which even now I declare (i. e. have declared) to "you." This interpretation has been learnedly defended by Lamp, Differtationes, t. 1. Diff. 17. ad locum John vill. 25.

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of the world, and to fave men from their fins, by being lifted up on a crofs; but that thofe who believed not this teftimony of him fhould die in their fins, ver. 12, 18, 24, 26, 28, 29.

John xvii. 19. "And for their fakes I fancti"fy myself, that they alfo may be fanctified thro' the truth." Some of the truths mentioned in the context are: that the Father fent the Son into the world: that the Son glorified the Father on earth, and finifhed the work, which the Father gave him to do; that the Father hath given him power over all flesh, that he might give eternal life to as many as were given him; or in fewer words, that for the fake of thofe given him of the Father he fanctified himself, ver. 3, 4, 2, 19. first clause. Two verfes before, Chrift had termed that fame doctrine the Father's truth. 66 Sanctify them thro' "thy truth, thy word is truth." The truth, which reveals the decrees and will of the Father, in that scheme of grace for man's redemption, which could never have been known without revelation, and which appears every way fo worthy the God and Father of our Lord Jefus, and fo brightly difplays his glory, that its excellency points out its author, and to which the Father hath born witnefs, both by the prophets, and a voice from heaven.

Eph. i. 13. "In whom ye alfo trufted after "that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of 66 your falvation." Here the last expreffion sufficiently explains the first.

1 John ii. 4. " He that fayeth, I know him (viz. Jefus) and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Here the truth means what was afferted, ver. H 3

I, 2.

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