6 INWARD WITNESS TO CHRISTIANITY. [SERM. t. structions, or the inspiration of his Spirit, so that they may be properly'called the doctrines of Christ. But this is not all that is required of believers ; for so much knowledge, and so much faith as this is, the devils may have,, and Simon Magus the sorcerer might have as muchas this when he believed. The faith that is expressed in this epistle, and in other places of scripture, is more than a bare assent to the great truths of the gospel ; for it is such a faith as overcomes the world, such a faith as gains a victory over things sensual, and over Satan; such a faith as evidences a man to be born ofGod: And therefore something more must be implied in it than a mere belief of the nature and person of Christ, and the truth of his doctrine. 2. It therefore implies a betrusting the soul into the hands of Christ, that he naay be our Saviour, And I have sometimes thought that those words in the Greek, which we render faith and believing, are continually used in the new testament, to signify faith, a - saving faith; because they not only signify, in their natural sense, the believing of a truth, but the trusting in a person. They signify believing the doctrine of Christ, and committing the soul into his hands as a Saviour, as it is expressed by St. Paul, 2 Tim. i. 12. Iknow whom I have believed, and I ampersuaded he is able to keepwhat I have committed to him. To believe on the Son of God therefore, is when a person, from a sense of sin and danger of eternal death, and his inability Ito escape any other way, applies himself unto Christ Jests, as the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. When the soul com- mits itself into his hands, as one All- sufficient in himself to save, and one appointed by the Father for this glorious purpose. When the soul is made willing to be justified by the merits and righteousness of another, seeing itself unable, by all its own works, to attain to a justifying righteousness. When the soul is desirous to be sancti- fied by the grace that is from above, because it sees the necessity of holiness, and yet feels itself utterly uncapa- ble to renew its own nature, to mortify its own sins, or to form itself fit for the enjoyment of God and heaven. When the soul for these ends, puts itself under the care of Christ Jesus, who is authorised and commissioned by
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=