Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

for. Where is this evidence, where is this substance to be found? Even in the hearts where they are, and no where else. What a general absurdity, then, is that which they call a general faith? Is not the truth of God, or object of faith, one particular individual truth or object? Is not all faith particular? fixed and determined to the particular individual subject wherein it is, however extensive the truth or object of belief be? Certainly. You believe, and see, and hear, and love, and live, in yourself alone, and not in another: neither indeed can it be otherways. If this be so, is it not truly an affecting thing to see those, whom in many respects you would incline to say God speed' to,-ranking themselves under different heads and denominations; maintaining on the one side, That justifying and sav ing faith is a persuasion, that Christ died for you in particular, and that you through his blood shall be saved;-and this same is their propriating act, whereby, they say, Christ becomes theirs! as if the Scripture had any where said so-as if you could be saved through the belief of any thing but what the Scripture hath said; which is true, whether you believe it or not-as if a blind person could receive his sight, a deaf person his hearing, a dead person his life, (the cases are quite parallel) by a persuasion that they saw, heard, and lived-while, in opposition to this false doctrine, it is as falsely as zealously maintained on the other side, That a

ap

person may be very well assured or persuaded of the truth of the testimony concerning Jesus, (which persuasion or assurance they compare to one end of an arch founded upon a rock) and yet at the same time remain in great doubt concerning his own particular interest in Jesus ; which latter thing they compare to the other end of the foresaid arch founded upon the sand.

Well, how shall this end also be established? By your self-denied obedience, say they; by your continued subjection to the gospel. How shall I know this same self-denied obedience, this continued subjection to the gospel, except I know the principle from whence they proceed? for if I do not bring forth my fruits to the glory of my own Father and God, in the name of the Lord Jesus, as sanctified, washed, justified, and by the spirit of adoption crying, ‹ Abba, Fa'ther,' I can never conclude they are proofs of my obedience and subjection to the gospel. These fruits do not flow merely from the relation subsisting between God and me, but from that relation known; and the fruits are not the means whereby the relation is known, but acknowledged; as it is written, Hereby acknowledge we,' (as it may be rendered,) that we

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

6

[ocr errors]

have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren." Take away the knowledge, the certain knowledge of my own personal relation, union, interest, communion with God; and you dry up, at the same time, all the springs of my

self-denial and obedience, or painful labour of love. Can I obey, unless I love? Can I love, unless I am loved, and know that I am loved? Says one, Would to God, I were as certain of my own particular interest in Christ, as I am of the truth of the gospel in general! Did that man know what he was saying, he would have precisely the same assurance and certainty of his own particular interest in Christ, as of the general truth of the gospel: for is it not written,

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness 6 to every one that believeth.' Believeth! What? even what is there said, that Christ is the

[ocr errors]

end of the law.' Do you know you believe or understand, according to the testimony, what you call the general truth? the conclusion is as direct upon you for your own particular interest therein for they who believe, believe not in general, but in particular; even as no person ever saw the light in general for others, and was blind himself: so no person has any ground to believe there is salvation for others, but he has the same evidence it is to himself. And those people, who say they believe there is salvation for others, according to the gospel, and say they doubt of their own interest therein, do evidently lie; they do not understand what they pretend to believe: for no person can believe, without being conscious or certain, that he himself in particular believes. They ask you, Is assurance of the essence of faith? They might

as well ask you, if the sun be of the essence of the sun? for what is faith but the assurance God gives one through his word by the Spirit? and this being particular in a person's own self, and not in another, he has as much assurance that he believes, when he believes, as that he sees, hears, lives, loves, hates, desires, rejoices, &c. when he is in very deed so affected; which affections he hath no manner of evidence for, but that he is conscious of his being so affected: and yet it is not by persuading himself that he is so affected, that he really is so; but, being so affected, it is impossible but he must have a consciousness or persuasion of his being so. Says another, in one of his dissertations lately published, All faith must indeed include something particular in the nature of it. He gives you an instance in the believer of the law and its threatenings, which, says he, strike the person in particular, as if he himself were the very one pointed at; even so with regard to the gospel he believes not that his sins are actually forgiven him, and that he shall be saved-but that there is mercy and forgiveness with God for sinners in general, and that he may be saved, or something to that purpose. Who taught him to say so of a believer of the gospel? Not the Holy Ghost: for he says, 1 John ii, 12. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake'and verse 21. I have not written to you,

[ocr errors]

be

[ocr errors]

ye

• cause ye know not the truth, but because • know it, and that no lle is of the truth.”— Says another, the patron of his own story, about an official Saviour to all mankind who shall be saved and damned; These words, 1 Cor. i. 30. • Christ made to you of God wisdom, righteous

ness,' &c. are not absolutely to be understood of the saints and faithful at Corinth and other places, but in a qualified sense: thus, he is made so by office; if you apply to him, he will be made so; not that he is already actually made so; but he is so officially to all mankind sinners indefinitely, their Goel, their Kinsman-RedeemGod deliver whom he will deliver from such abominations! which are the more dangerous, the liker they are to the truth; even as forged money or bills receive all their currency from their being the more exactly counterfeited.

er.

4

pos

These forgeries and counterfeits of faith had not been mentioned in this place, but for the sake of the truth, which, by their currency, is greatly sunk and debased. If it had been sible, the falsehoods they maintain about faith and the Psalms, &c. had been mentioned without the persons or parties who maintain them at alland if some find themselves more exactly described than they would wish-if the cap fit them, they are welcome to wear it-if it do not, there is no harm done, they are not the persons meant. -But as men, and sects of men, have given the stamp and authority of their respective names

« AnteriorContinuar »