as Efau and Jacob did in Rebecca's womb; and
making us complain, The good that I would do, if it
coft me nothing, I do not: but the evil I would not,
that I do. Thus with his mind, his rational powers,
the carnal penitent ferves the law of God, by good,
though ineffectual refolutions; but with his flefh, his
carnal appetites, he ferves the law of fin, by bad, tho'
lamented performances.

Faith does not struggle into birth without her coe-
val child and conftant partner, hope. When faith
fails, defpair groans, O wretched man that I am! Who
fhall deliver me? But when faith revives, hope lifts
up her head, and cries, I thank God, there is deli-
verance through Jefus Chrift our Lord. Thus we go
on falling and riling, dying and reviving, till we are
quite tired of the fins, which hinder us from wel-
coming the faving truth with a more cordial embrace;
and when we do this, our faith is unfeigned; the
Lord fets to it the broad feal of his power; it proves
victorious; we enter into gospel-liberty, and instead
of the old note, Who fhall deliver me? We fing, Chrift
hath delivered us from the curfe of the law of fin, as well
as from the curfe of the law of innocence, and of the
ceremonial law. There is no condemnation to them that
believe, and WALK not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit.

The manner, in which this deliverance is generally wrought, may be more particularly defcribed thus. Free grace, at fundry times, and in divers manners, fpeaks to our confciences; recommending and enforcing the word nigh, the commandment that is everlafting life. If it is the day of provocation, we unneceffarily begin to make excufe: we CANNOT come to the marriage feast: we are either too good, too bad, or too busy to entertain the truth; and we fay as civilly as Felix, Go thy way for this time, when I fhall be fitter, or when I fhall have a more convenient feafon, I will call for thee. Perhaps we perverfely harden our hearts, contradicling, or blafpheming. But if our freewilling foul know's the time of her vifitation; humbly

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bowing

bowing at the word of the Lord, and faying as the Virgin Mary, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done unto me according to thy wORD: I am a loft finner, but there is mercy with thee that thou mayft be feared; then the feed of the kingdom, the word of God, is received in an honeft and good heart; for nothing. is wanting to render the heart initially good and honeft, but the fincere submission of our free will to that free grace, which courts us and says: Behold! I ftand at the door of every heart and knock; if ANY MAN hear my voice and open, I will come in and fup with him, and he with me; he fhall tafte how good the Lord is, he fhall tafte the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come.

Thus opens the kingdom of God in the believ. ing foul: thus is Chrift, the truth and the life, formed in the heart by faith: Thus grace begins to REIGN thro' righteoufnefs unto eternal life by Jefus Chrift.

I call that faith faving and OPERATIVE, because, fo long as it lives, it faves; and fo long as it faves, it WORKS righteoufnefs-it WORKS by a righteous fear of the evil denounced against fin; by a righteous oppofition to every known fin; by a righteous hope of the good promised to obedience; and by a righteous love of God. Therefore, when living faith ceases to work, it dies away, as the heart that ceases to beat; it goes out, as a candle that ceases to shine. "But, upon this footing, what becomes of the modifh doctrine of a faith without frame and feel"ing."-If the minifters, who recommend fuch a faith, mean that we must fet our heart, as a feal, to the gospel truths adapted to our present ftate, and ftamp them with all our might; not confidering whether our fallen nature and carnal reafon relish them, they maintain a great truth, which cannot be too much urged upon tempted, and defpairing fouls. But if they mean, that we must believe ourfelves unconditionally elected to glory, be the frame of our minds ever fo carnal, and the feelings of our hearts ever fo worldly, they deftroy the health

of

of the daughter of God's people, with as rank poifon as ever grew in fpiritual Egypt. I am no judge of what paffes in the breaft of those gentlemen; but, for my part, I never FEEL faith more strongly at work, than when I wrestle not only with flesh and blood, but with the banded powers of darkness.

* None but a dead man is quite deftitute of "frame and feeling" It is not a real flame that neither warms in winter, nor fhines in the dark. The moment a light is not, in its degree, able to triumph over darkness, and even to turn it into light, it ceafes to be a true light. You may see in Windfor-caftle a candle moft exquifitely painted; it fhines as ftedfaftly as Mr. Fulfome believes. Was the coloured canvas as loquacious as that Antinomian hero, it might say," I fhine without feeling," but even then, Mr. Fulfome's faith would have the pre-eminence; for, if we credit him, it fhines, without either "frame or feeling.' How abfurd is Solifidianifm! How dangerous! If any man can fhew me a true light, that actually emits no beams, I will repent of the ridicule I caft upon the dotages, which make way for a "juftifying faith" that works by adultery and murder; an illsmelling candle this, which burns in the breasts of apoftates, to the honour of him, that kindled it at the fire of tophet-an infernal candle, fending forth darkness inftead of light, and fo far benighting the good men, who follow it, that they look upon it as the inextinguishable candle of the Lord, and upon "fincere obedience" as a "jack o' lanthorn."

The REASONABLENESS of the doctrine of falvation by faith is farther evinced by a variety of arguments. How much we are indebted to the Solifidians, for hav

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ing

ing firmly food up in defence of FAITH: How dearly they have made us pay for that fervice, when they have fo enforced our x1th. article, which guards falvation by faith, as to make void the x11th, which guards morality.And why the overpowering fplendor of TRUTH is qualified by fome fhades.

HOULD fome readers ftill think, that it is un

fift more upon it than upon the other works and graces, which adorn the life and character of a Christian; to remove their fcruples, and to vindicate more fully the fundamental doctrine of falvation by faith, I prefent them with the following remarks.

(1) If true Faith is the root that produces hope, love and fincere obedience, is it not reasonable principally to urge the neceffity of believing aright? The end of all preaching is undoubtedly to plant the tree of evangelical obedience; and how can that tree be planted, but by its root? Was a gardener ever charged with unreasonableness, for not letting a tree by the branches?

(2) If faith working by love is the heart of true religion, fhould we not bestow our chief attention and care upon it? Suppofe you were a phyfician, and attended a patient, who had an impoftume in his tomach and another on his hand; would do you honour to your skill, if overlooking the internal mischief, you confined your attention to the exer

nal ulcer?

If the fcripture declares four times, that the juft fhall LIVE by his FAITH, a declaration this, which St. Paul confirms by his own experience, when he fays, I LIVE by FAITH; is it not evident, that when we practically reject the doctrine of faith, we reject life, together with all the bleffings which are brought to light by the gospel; a gofpel difbelieved being undoubtedly a gofpel REJECTED.

(4) If Abraham, by not flaggering at the promise of

God

God through UNBELIEF, and by being ftrong in FAITH, gave glory to God, and did fet his feal that God is true:

-if you cannot honour a fuperior more, than by receiving his every word with respectful confidence, and moving at his every beck with obedient alacrity: -and if faith thus honours God, why should you refuse it the first place among the graces, which fupport and adorn the church militant? Especially fince the Lord declares, that the PURE in HEART fhall fee God, and that our HEARTS are PURIFIED by FAITH ?-And fince the fcriptures teftify, that without HOLINESS no man fhall fee the Lord, and that we are SANCTIFIED through FAITH that is in him?

(5) All fulness dwells in God: creatures abstracted from the divine plenitude are mere emptiness. Rational creatures, in their most perfect state, are only moral veffels filled with the grace of God, and reflecting the light of divine truth. Now if we can be faved any other way but by grace through obedient faith, i. e. by freely receiving the grace and light of God, through the practical belief of the truth proposed to us :- -if we are in any degree faved by our proper merit through faithlefs works; we may indulge Pharifaic boafting. But, God does not fo give his glory to human worms: therefore fuch a boafting is excluded by the law of faith; and the apostle wifely obferves, that falvation is of FAITH, that it might be by GRACE; the juftifying faith of finners always implying a cordial acknowledgment of their fin and mifery, and an hearty recourfe to the tender mercy of our God whereby the day fpring from on high has vifited us +more or lefs clearly, according to the difpenfation we are under.

(6) The

To establish the doctrine of the gofpel-difpenfations, to show that faving truth, in its various manifeftations, is the object of faving faith, I need only prove, that a man, in order to his falva. tion, is bound to believe at one time, what he was not bound to believe at another. Take one inftance out of many. If St. Pe ter had died juft after he had been pronounced blessed for acknow. fedging, that our Lord was the Son of God, he could not have been carfed with a "Depart from me," &c. he would have been faved: