Polhill - Houston-Packer Collection BT770 .P7 1675

92ectougi .lath. pand and fpread abroad the fails of our faith to take in the larger gales and effulions of the holy ( proft. Secondly, Faith, unlefl explicite, cannot arrive at thefe ends for which it is ordained; viz.to raife up the heart to a reliance on the free grace of God in Chrift,to inflame the heart with the love of God and holy things, to fanftifie the heart through the truth, and to overcome the world with its lulls : A meer implicite faith cannot reach thefe,it cannot raife the heart up to a re- liance on Gods grace in Chrifl : to that reliance is prerequired not only a beliefthat God is true in the Scriptures in general,but alfo a belief that God is true in the precious promifes in fpecial We are like Jacob, not believing in the mercies of God till we fee the chariots,the gracious pro- mifes,which he bath rent down from heaven to carry up our faith to himfelf; ?hey that know thy name,will put their truft in thee, Pfal.9. so. they and they only. Neither can it inflame the heart wi th the love of God and holy things: light and heat ever go together : Implicite faith is a dark and cold thing, affording no fpiritual warmth at all ; he that hath no more, is but a Nabal,a fool in religion, and his heart as dead and cold as a fione within him, till the love of God in the explicite notion of it íhine into the foul ; it will not, like the difciples at Emmaus, burn within us with love to God and his ways : neither can it fan 7ifie the heart through the truth, the word did not profit them not being mixed or tempered with faith.faith the Apoftle, Heb.4.2. `A here 4-5'

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