442 QUESTIONS CONCERNING JESUS. compare with the writings of the prophets ; which it was not possible the disciples should do in so complete a manner, and to so great satisfaction during the life of Christ, had they been ever so sagacious, and ever so well prepared. Question III. C° How could the disciples trust in him as their Saviour, and commit their souls to him for salvation in his life-time, if they had not a firm faith in his godhead ?" Answer I. The way whereby the fathers before Christ were saved, was not so much by adirect actof faithon the person of the Messiah, who was to come, as by the direct and immediate ex- ercise of faith or trust on the mercy of God, as it was to be re- vealed in and through the Messiah in due time. Now the dis- pensation of those three or four years whichpast during the life of Christ, was a sort of medium between the law and the gos- pel : and the acts and exercises of the apostles' faith or trust and dependence, like that of the patriarchs, might be moredi- rectly placedon the mercy of God himself for salvation, as it had begun to manifest itself in and by Jesus the Messiah, now come into the world. So St. Peter expresses it, 1 Pet. i. 21. You who by him do believe in God. Though they were frequently called to believe in Christ, yet you find they were so unskilled in a direct act of divine faith on him, that our Lord was fain to repeat the command with great solemnity but just before his death. John xiv. i. Ye believe in God, believe also in me: as if he should have said, " Ye have a long time trusted and professed your faith in God and his mercy, make me now also the direct object of your faith or trust, as ye have made God the Father." II. Under the great darkness and confusion of their notions in that season of twilight, they sometimes paid too little honour to Christ, because they had too low an esteem of him ; and some- times the honour they paid him through the influence of rapture and surprise, though not too high in itself, yet it might be above and beyond the clear discernment of their understandings and their own settled judgment concerning him. Thus they might now and then exert some faint acts of divine faith on him, while in the main they were doubtful of his godhead. But a gracious God makes great allowances for such weaknesses in faith and practice, where the divine discoveries which he mikes to men, have but imperfect degrees of light and evidence. Question IV. " Does it not follow then, if the disciples were in a state of grace, and yet doubted of the deity of Christ ; surely the deity of Christ was not a fundamental article in that day ?" Answer I. Fundamentalsare differentin different seasons and times, nations and ages ; for as God makes more or less disco- veries of divine truth to men, so more or less is necessary to be
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