iPIR1TUA6 ['RACE AND CODI6'ORT. 321 sages in the text, they eagerly insist on it, that when we say, We believe the forgiveness of sin, and life everlasting,' every man is to profess that he believeth that his own sins are forgiven, and he shall have life everlasting himself. But our later divines, and es- pecially the English, and most especially those that deal most in practicals, do see the mistake, and lay down the same doctrine which I teach you here ; God bids us not believe, as from him; more than he bath revealed. But only one of the propositions is revealed by God's testimony, " He that believeth shall be saved." But it is no where written that you do believe, nor that you shall be saved; nor any thing equivalent. And therefore you are not commanded to believe either of these. How the Spirit revealeth these, I have fully told you already. In our creed thereforewe do profess to believe remissionofsins to be purchased by Christ's death, and in his power to give, and given in his gospel to all, on condi- tion of believing in Christ himself for remission ; but not to believe that our own sins are actually and fully pardoned. My end in telling you this again (which I have told you else- where) is this, That you may not think (as I find abundance of poor troubled souls do) that faith (much less justifying faith) is a believing that you have true grace, and shall be saved ; and so fall a condemning yourself unjustly every time that you doubt of your own sincerity, and think that somuch as you doubt of this, so much unbelief you have ; and so many poor souls complain that they have no faith, or but little, and that they cannot believe, because they believe not their own faith to be sincere ; and when they wholly judge themselves utisanctified, then they call that desperation, which they think to be a sin inconsistent with true grace. These are dangerous errors, all arising from thatt one error which the heat of contention did carry some good men to, that faith is a belief that our sins are forgiven by Christ. Indeed, all men are bound to ap- ply Christ and the promise to themselves. But that application consisteth in a belief that this promise is true, as belonging to all, and so to me, and then in acceptance of Christ and his benefits as an offered gift ;. and after this, in trusting on him for the full per- formance of this promise. Hence therefore you may best see what unbelief and desperation are, and how far men may charge them- selves with them. When you doubt whether the promise be true, or when you refuse to accept Christ and his benefits offered in it, and consequently to trust him as one. that is able and willing to save you, if you do absent to his truth, and accept him, this is un- belief. But if you do believe the truth of the gospel, and are heartily willing to accept Christ as offered in it, and only doubt whether your belief and acceptance of him be sincere, and so . whether you shall be saved, this is not unbelief, but ignorance of von. r. 41
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