280 ¡AITH DUILM ON KNOWLEDGE. After all this, there follows an acquiescence, or rest of the soul inChrist, which he promised, when hecalled the weary and the heazy ladensinners to come to him; Mat. xi. 28. And this is accompanied with a good hope and expectation of all this salva- tion from Christ, for which the sinner trusts in him And this ex- cites his love and thankfulness to Christ, and awakens all his endeavours to a warm pursuit of heaven, in the path of holiness, inwhich God hath appointed us to walk to thekingdom. Thus every divine promise, every threatening, and everycommand, obtains adue authority over the heart, under the vital influence of such a faith. This is not a lazy and a slothful confidence, that casts away all care by throwing it on Christ, and walks in a secure and bold neglect of duty For a believer well knows that he is bound to take the utmost care of hisown soul, to work out his salvation, with holy fear, to watch against temptation, to resist every rising sin, and persevere to the death ; though from a sense of his own insufficiency,he builds his safety and hope on the all- sufficiency of Christ. Letit be observed here, that it is not necessary that all these several workings of the heart should be plain, and distinct, and sensible, in every act of faith, nor in every true believer : For the actions of the soul, and especially the springs, and the mo- tives, and designs of those actions, areso hidden, and so mingled with each other, that they are not all distinctly perceived even in the soul, where they are transacted. When the jailor cried out, What shall I do tobe saved ' Acts xvi. 30. or when the poor man in the gospel, Mark ix. 24. said, Lord, I believe ; help my unbe- lief ; there were a multitude of crowding thoughts and passions that produced and mingled with those ideas and expressions of fear and faith, which could never be distinctly apprehended and recounted by the persons that felt them. But this I say, that most, or all the particularsI have mentioned, seem to be neces= sary in the very nature of a true andsaving faith in Christ, where the gospel is known and preached so clearly as it is in our times, and mustbe pre-supposed or involved, and secretly included, in the veryact of believing unto eternal life. It is a committing the soul tothe care of Christ, from such motives, and with such designs, asI have described. This account of saving faith guards it against all the mis- takes of the age, andsecures if against all the inroads of error on either side. A christian that takes in all these views, will not easily be led . away by the popish, or any other doctrine, where faith is supposed to be a mere assent to the revelations of the gospel, nor will he be ensnared by the unwary expressions of some great writers, that faith is a full persuasion of our own sal- %ation, which has given too much countenance to Antinomien fol- lïes. I-Ie thathas this kuowledge and this belief which I have
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