God, who doth not cast off for ever, but though he cause grief, yet, will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies:' to commit his way to him who is able to bring it to pass, and to do abundantly above the thoughts, desires, expectations, or petitions of men; what peace and serenity must this be to the soul, which is otherwise without light and peace! Sixthly, The more faith a man hath, the more joy and glory he hath in spiritual, the more contentment and quietness in earthly things. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God: In whom believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."-Earthly-mindedness and worldly cares grow out of want of faith: In these and a world the like respects should we be moved to seek for his grace; and that so much the more carefully, because the heart is of itself barren, and therefore very unfit to have a foreign plant grow in it; very apt to overtop it with lusts and vanities. We must therefore be diligent to make our assurance full and certain, diligent in the word of faith, and with the spirit of faith.f "Be ye not slothful," saith the apostles, "but followers of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises." d Lastly, We must do with faith, as men do with precious things, try it, and put it to the touchstone, that we may prove whether it be truly valuable and unfeigned; because there is much counterfeit faith as there is false money, and deceitful jewels, and wild herbs in the field; which very nearly resemble those that are right and pure. This is an argument which hath been much travelled in by men of more learning and spirit; and therefore I will but touch upon it, by considering four principal effects of this grace. The first is a love and liking of those spiritual truths, which, by faith, the heart assenteth unto. For according as is the evidence and preciousness of the thing believed, such is the measure of our love unto it. For saving faith is an assent with adherence and delight, contrary to that of devils, y Lam. iii. 26, 31. z Psal. xxxvii. 5. c Heb. xiii. 5,6. d 2 Pet. i. 10. e Roni, x. 8. a Rom, v. 1. b 1 Pet. i. 8. Heb. vi. 12. which is with trembling and horror: and that delight is nothing else, but a kind of relish and experience of the goodness of that truth, which we assent unto. Whereupon hit necessarily follows even from the dictate of nature (which instructeth a man to love that which worketh in him comfort and delight), that from this assent must arise a love of those truths, whence such sweetness doth issue. By the first act of faith, we apprehend God a reconcileable God; by the second, a reconciled God: for faith shews us God's love to us in Christ; proposeth him as altogether lovely, the chiefest of ten thousand, and thereby begetteth in us a love unto Christ again. And this love is a sincere, uncorrupted, immortal love, a conjugal and superlative love. Nothing must be loved in competition with Christ" every thing must be rejected and cast away, either as a snare, when he hates it, or as a sacrifice when he calls for it. Therefore God required the nearest of a man's blood in some cases to throw the first stone at an idolater; to shew, that no relations should preponderate", or oversway our hearts from his love. Christ and earthly things often come into competition in the life of a man: In every unjust gain, Christ and a bribe, or Christ and cruelty; in every oath or execration, Christ and a blasphemy; in every sinful fashion, Christ and a rag, or Christ and an excrement; in every vainglorious affectation, Christ and a blast; in every intemperancy, Christ and a vomit, a stagger, a shame, a disease. O where is that faith in men, which should overcome the world, and the things of the world? Why should men delight in any thing while they live, which when they lie on their death-beds (a time speedily approaching) they shall never be able to reflect on with comfort, nor to recount without amazement and horror? Certainly he that fosters any Delilah, or darling lust, against the will and command of Christ, well may he delude himself with foolish conceits that he loves the Lord Jesus: but let him be assured,' that though he may be deceived, yet God will not be mocked, not every h Ὅσον γὰρ τίμιόν ἐστι τὸ πιστευόμενον, τοσοῦτον ἀγαπᾶται· καὶ ὅσον ἀγαπᾶται, τοσοῦτον ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὴν ἔκπτωσιν αὐτοῦ φοβεῖται. Just. Mart, Qu. Orthodox, 98. i Eph. v. 25. Rom. v. 5, 8. 1 John iv. 16. k Cant. v. 10, 16. 11 John iv. 19. & v. 1. Eph. vi. 24. Rom. vii. 24. m Matth. x. 37. n Luke xiv. 26. Deut. xiii. 6, 9. one that saith, Lord, Lord,' shall be accounted the friends of Christ, but they who keep his commandments. The second effect of faith is affiance and hope, confidently, for the present, relying on the goodness, and, for the future, waiting on the power, of God, which shall, to the full, in due time, perform, what in his Word he hath promised; "I have set life and death before you," saith Moses to the people, "that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him," &c. "We are confident," saith the apostle P, "knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord." When once the mind of a man is wrought so to assent unto divine promises made in Christ, as to acknowledge an interest, claim, and propriety unto them, and to be at last actually performed, not by a man, who may be subject both to unfaithfulness in keeping, and disability in performing his promises; but by Almighty God, who the better to confirm our faith in him, hath, both by word and oath, engaged his fidelity, and is altogether omnipotent to do what he hath purposed or promised; impossible it is, but from such an assent, grounded on the veracity of and allsufficiency of God, there should result in the mind of a faithful man, a confident dependance on such promises; renouncing in the mean time all self-concurrency, as in itself utterly impotent; and to the fulfilling of such a work, as is to be by God's own omnipotency effected, altogether irrequisite; and resolving, in the midst of temptations, to rely on him, to hold fast his mercy and the profession of his faith without wavering, having an eye to the recompence of reward, and being assured that he who hath promised, will certainly bring it to pass. A third effect of faith is joy and peace of conscience. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. The God of peace fill you with all joy and peace in believing." The mind is, by the relish and experience of sweetness in God's promises, composed unto a settled calmness and serenity. I do not mean a dead peace, which is only an immobility and sleepiness of conscience, like the rest of a dreaming man on the top of a mast; but such a peace, as a man may, by a VOL. 1. o Deut. xxx. 20. syllogism of the practical judgment, upon right examination of his own interest unto Christ, safely infer unto himself. The wicked often have an appearance of peace, as well as the faithful; but there is a great difference. For there is but a door between a wicked man and his sin, which will certainly one day open; and then sin at the door will fly upon the soul: but between a faithful man and his sin, there is a wall of fire, and an immovable and impregnable fort, -even the merits of Christ. The wicked man's peace grows out of ignorance of God, the law, himself; but a righteous man's peace grows out of the knowledge of God, and Christ. So that there are two things in it; tranquillity, it is a quiet thing; and serenity,-it is a clear and distinct thing. However, if a faithful man have not present peace (because peace is an effect not of the first and direct, but of the second and reflexive, act of faith), yet there is even with all faith, the seed of peace, and a resolution to seek and to sue it out. The last effect of faith, which I shall now speak of, is fructification, "Faith worketh by love:" and it worketh, First, repentance, whereby we are not only to understand grief for sin, or a sense of the weight and guilt of it, which is only a legal thing (if it proceed no farther) and may go before faith; but hatred of sin, as a thing contrary to that new spirit of holiness and grace, which in Christ we have received. For as sense of sin as a cursed thing (which is legal humiliation) doth arise from that faith, whereby we believe and assent to the truth of God in all his threatenings (which is a legal faith); so the abominating of sin as an unclean thing, and contrary to the image and holiness of God, (which is evangelical repentance) doth arise from evangelical faith; whereby we look upon God as most merciful, most holy, and therefore most worthy to be imitated and served. Secondly, renovation, and that twofold: First, inward, in the constitution of the heart, which is by faith purified: Secondly, outward, in the conversation and practice, when a man, out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth good things,—and, as he hath received the Lord Jesus, so walketh in him. Now in all our obedience, we must observe these three rules: First, That binding power, which is in the law, doth solely depend upon the authority of the lawgiver, who is God. He that, customarily, and without care of obedience, or fear of displeasure, or antipathy of spirit, breaks any one commandment, ventures to violate that authority which, by one and the same ordination, made the whole law equally binding, and by consequence is habitually, and in præparatione animi,' a transgressor of the whole law. And therefore obedience must not be partial but universal, as proceeding from that faith which hath respect equally to all God's will, and looks upon him as most true and most holy in all his commands. Secondly, As God, so his law, is a spiritual and a perfect law, and therefore requires an inward universality of the subject, as well as that other of the precepts which we walk by:-I mean such a spiritual and sincere obedience of the heart, as may, without any mercenary or reserved respects, uniformly sway our whole man unto the same way and end. Thirdly, In every law, all matter homogeneal and of the same kind with the particular named,-every sprig, seed, original of the duty is included, as all the branches of a tree belong to the same stock. And by these rules we are to examine the truth of our obedience. Before I draw down these premises to a particular assumption and application, I must, for caution sake, premise, that faith may be in the heart either habitually as an actus primus,' a form, or seed, or principle of working; or else actually as an actus secundus,' a particular operation; and that, in the former sense, it doth but remotely dispose and order the soul to these properties: but, in the latter, it doth more visibly and distinctly produce them. So then, according as the heart is deaded in the exercise of faith, so do these properties thereof more dimly appear, and more remissly work. Secondly, We must note, that according as faith hath several workings, so Satan hath several ways to assault and weaken it. There are two main works of faith, obedience and comfort, to purify and to pacify the heart: and according unto these, so Satan tempts. His main end is to wrong and dishonour God; and therefore chiefly he labours to disable the former virtue of faith, and tempts to sin against God. But when he cannot proceed so far, he labours to discomfort and crush the spirits of men. When he prevails in the former, he weakens all the pro |