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to salvation by Jesus Christ, he would perish for want of saving faith. Thousands believe, that God created the world of nothing, and that the wicked shall be turned into hell, who will find their own portion there but "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.". 1 John v. 1. "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life." 1 John v. 10. 13.

God testifies to us, that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, for the sake of Christ; that the just by faith shall live; that Christ with all his benefits is offered to us; and whosoever will may come to him for salvation; and that the person who approaches shall in no case be reject ed. Now let the regenerated man attend to any one of these propositions, understand it, and in his own mind assent to the truth, contained in it, and he will believe on Christ Jesus for salvation.

This faith is styled SAVING, because Christ gives it, and believers exercise it, and, are thereby united to Christ, that they may be saved.

It is called justifying faith, because it is the instrument of justification. God prom. ises to give justifying righteousness to every

one, who shall in any one, single instance believe with this kind of faith, on the Lord Jesus Christ.

ASSURANCE is said to be of the essence of faith, because in each separate act of faith, or judgment that a proposition of God concerning the Saviour is true, there is no doubt of its truth. The next act of the mind may be that of doubting the truth of that proposition, which in the previous operation was judged to be true: but in the very act of believing, the mind cannot disbelieve, or doubt. In that act of the mind which I call believing, I can no more doubt the truth of the proposition which I believe, than I can believe, and not believe, at the same time.

Saving faith is said, in the present life, to be imperfect, because we sometimes doubt the truth of statements which we sometimes believe; and because all the operations of a sinner's mind are less vigorous, and influential, than they will be, when all the effects of sin have been exterminated from the whole constitution of man. A child may believe like a child, and a man of powerful and highly excited mind, like Paul, ready to depart; while neither the child nor the man, in the act of believing, has any doubt of the truth of what he believes. We speak of degrees in faith, because some operations of the mind in believing are more sensibly felt, that is, are accompanied by more lively feelings thap

others. Indeed, half mankind mistake feel ings for judgments; or the sensations which follow faith, for the act of believing. Let us then, turn our attention

IIIly, To the principal operations of saving faith. The mind of the renewed sinner which perceives spiritual things in a spiritual light, and believes every thing it knows God to have asserted concerning the Saviour, will also perform by its other faculties other operations, which are connected with faith and proceed from it. These consequent acts of the mind which God has inseparably connected with faith are what I call the principal operations of saving faith. The act of believing may be distinguished from those holy feelings which result from it, and which prove our faith to be that which is peculiar to sincere Christians. God, who originates faith, has also attached to it the most desirable consequences. Every believer in Jesus has emotions which in a greater or less degree correspond with his acts of believing on Christ. An established connexion is found both in natural and spiritual things between certain operations of one faculty, and certain operations of another faculty of the human mind, so that scarcely one operation is insulated. It is an established law by which God governs mind, to which there are but few exceptions, that certain perceptions should be followed by cer

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tain judgments, those judgments by certain feelings, those feelings by certain volitions, and those volitions by correspondent internal or external actions. Thus, a regenerated sin ner has right perceptions of the Saviour, which lead to right judgments, or acts of faith in the statements which God has made concerning him; these acts of faith are productive of right feelings, which are generally pleasant feelings; and these feelings induce in us volitions to obey Christ; which volitions bring forth the internal operations of pious self-government, and the external actions of righteousness. Such a connexion is established in God's gracious government of his. people. When we know the true God, then we judge him to be faithful, and believe every one of his assertions to be true, because we have previously judged that he will not lie. Hence, "a Christian believeth to be true, whatsoever is revealed in the word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein; and acteth differently, upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the theatenings, and embracing the promises, of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of

grace."* Saving faith is an operative judg ment of the mind: it works by love; and particularly excites the faculties of feeling, and will to holy activity. In the natural man his judgments are followed by feelings and determinations; and in the new man Christ reigns without doing violence to the order of intellectual arrangement which was established in the formation of Adam.

Saving faith operates by all the faculties of man, but those mental acts which are produced by the influence of faith, on the faculties of FEELING and WILL, are most important. To these I shall confine your attention, during the remainder of this discourse.

In contemplating its agency on our feelings, let us remark,

First, That faith, by a divine constitution, produces Love to God and man. LOVE is a feeling of pleasure which can only be described to one who has experienced it. One who has never loved can form no just notion of love but one who has loved natural good, may conceive that spiritual objects should employ the powers of another's mind. Every believer loves God and his Son, Jesus Christ; the word, the worship, and the providence of God; with all those things which he perceives, in a divine light, to be lovely. Without believing the truth concerning God

* Confession of Faith, chap. xiv. sect. 2.