196 AGAINST UNCHARITABLENESS. such a faith as brings with it repentance and good works, or ho- liness of life, or such a 'love as produces obedience and good works, which must be the effect of this faith ? In christianity no- thing avails but such a faith as works by love, unto all holiness ; Gal. v. 6. Repent and believe the gospel, was the first preaching of Christ and his apostles ; Mark i. 15. And other places, faith is indispensably coupled with repentance ; Acts iii. 19. xx. 21. Without repentance our sins will not be forgivenus, without faith in Jesus Christ we have no interest in his salvation. True faith must be such as purifies the heart; Acts xv. 9. And produces good works as the necessary evidences to prove our faith true ; James ii. 17, 18. What a strange sort of monstrous christian would this be, whopretended to much faith, but had no love nor repentance ? And as monstrous would that pretender be, who had love or repentance without faith. As God hath set themein- bers in the body, every oneofthem as it hath pleasedhim ; 1 Cor. síii. 18. so has he 'appointed faith, repentance and love to fulfil their several offices in the christian life. What a piece of mad- ness therefore is it, and high inconsistency to separate those things which God bath joined in his gospel ? Or to preach and paraphrase very long, and talk very much upon ever a one of these, so as to hinder that due respect that is to be paid to the other two ? No man is or can be a true believer in Christ, if he has not repentance and love,producing good works, as well as that faith which is necessary to make a christian. Let us take heed therefore lest we give occasion by any of our dis- courses to exalt one of these virtues or graces to the prejudice of the rest, for the utter loss of either of them will destroy all our pretences to christianity. When Solfido has formed one of his christiàns exactly agreeable, to the shape and humour of his own imagination, and dressed him up in all the-feathers ofstrict orthodoxy that he can find in the severest writers, and by a motto written upon his forehead has called him the manof faith, I am at a loss to know whatchristian church would receive him into their communion, when he neither professes repentance, nor holiness, nor true love to God or man. It has indeed some of the appearances of a christian statue, but it is a man without feet or hands for walk- ing or moving, a man without lifeor activity to run the christian race, or to do any thing for God in the world. What glory can our Lord Jesus Christ receive from such a useless figure ? What honour can such an imperfect image possibly bring to the gospel : Or what service can he be of in the world, or in they church ? X. The most common cause of uncharitableness, and the last I shall mention, is, that a great part ofthe professors of our holy religion, t àke their heads the chief seat of it, and scarce ever
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