The Life of Faith. 219 todamn the finner, is not fuch an objet, as a guilty foul can love : but it mutt be a loving and reconciled God that is willing to forgive. s. When Chri(tbyhis Word and Minitiers hath taught a firmer bath what God is in himfelf, and what he is to us, and what we have dcferved, and what our cafe is and then . hath taught him, what he himfelf is as tohis perfon and his of- ftce, and what he hath done to reconcile us to God, and how far God is reconciledhereupon, and what a common conditional pardoning Covenant, he bath made and offereth to all, and what he will be and do to thofc that do come in, the belief of all thisferioufly (by theafenting ad of theundcrftanding) is the fide patt offaving Faith, going in nature befoae both the Love of God, and the confenting ad of the Will to the Re- deemer. (And yet .perhaps the fame *Os of faith in an un- effeâual fuperficial mcafurc, may go long before this in many.) 6. In this affent our belief in God, and in the Mediatour, are conjunEdt in time and nature they being Relatives here as the objcds of our faith. It is not poffìble to believe in Chrift as the Mediatour, who bath propitiated God to us, before we be- lieve that God is propitiated by the Mediatour; nor vice verfâ : Indeed there is a difference in order of dignity and deferable nef?; God as propitiated being reprefentcd to us as the End, and the Propitiator, but as the Means : But as to the order of our apprebenfion or believing, therecan beno difference at all, no more than in the order of knowing the Father and the Son, the Husband and Wife, the King and fubje(s: Thefe Relatives are final naturâ & tempore. 7. This affenting ad ofFaith, by which at once we believe Chrift to be the Propitiator, andGod to bepropitiated by him, is not the beliefthat rayfins are alluafTy pardoned, and my foul aétually reconciled.and juftified; but it includeth the belief of the hitiory of Chrifis fatisfa6 ion, and of the common con- ditional Covenant of Promife and Offer from God, viz, that God is fofar reconciled by the Mediatour, as that he will for- give, and juítifie, andglorifie all that Repent andBelieve, that is, that return to God by faith in Chrifi ; and offereth this mercy to all, and intrcateth them to accept it, and will E c 2 condemn 4
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