Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BT770 .B39 1670

I 54 2 h Life, of f I~ailry. fpecial true belief. ofGods more common love and grace, may kindle in you a fpecial love, and then the fcnti of this may affure you of your fpecial interefi in Chrifi ; and then the offurance of that fpecial intereft, may increafe your love to a much higher degree : And thus live by Faith in the work. of Love. Dire6L 7. Thatyoumay under/land what that Faith is which you mug live by, take in all theparts (at leaff that are effential to ít)inyour defcriptton; and take not force parcels of it for the Cbriffian Faith; nor think, not that it muff needs be feveralforts ofFaith, ifit have feveral objects ; and hearken not to that dull Pbi- lofopbical fubtilty, rrbtcb would per fwadeyou that Faith is but fumefingle phyfical aft of the foul. r. h you know not what Faith is, it muff needs be a great hinderance to you, in the (ekingof it, the trying it, and the ufsng it. For though one may ufe his natural faculties, which work by natural inclination and neceflity, without knowing what they arc; yet it is not fo where the choice of the rational appetite is neceffary ; for it muff be guided by the reafoning faculty. And though unlearned perlons may bave and ufe Repentance, Faith, and other graces, who cannot define them; yet they do truly (though not perfectly) know the thing it felf, though they know not the terms ofa jut} definition : and . all defect of knowing the true nature of Faith, will be fotrte hindcranceto us in ufìng it. 2. It is a moral Abject which we are (peaking of; and terms arc to be undo-flood according to the natureof the fub- jed : therefore Faith is to be taken for a moral act, which comprehendeth many phyfical ads : Such as is the act of be- lieving in, or taking fuch aman for my Phyfician, or my Ma- tter, or my Tutor, or my King. Even our Philofophers them- film know not what doch individuate a pb}jcalact ofthe foul : (Nay, they are not agreed whether its acts fhould becalled pby fcal properly, or not.) Nay, they cannot tell what doth individuate an act of fenfe; whether when my eye doth at once fee many words and letters of my Book, every word or letter doch make as many individual acts, by being fo many objects ? And if fo, whether the pares of every letter allo do not conlitutc an individual act ; and where we Mall here flop ?

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