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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
much
as 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
of
God:
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.
I
know whom
I
have
believed,
and
I
am
persuaded
he is
able to
keep
what
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