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observance of all the commands, ordinances, and institutions of Christ in the gospel. Therefore, we should have an equal respect always to both these parts of profession, lest failing in one we be found at length to fail in the whole. For example, lest while we are sedulous about the due and strict observance of the duties of instituted worship, a neglect or decay should grow upon us, as to holiness or moral righteousness. For whilst the mind is deeply exercised about those duties, either out of a peculiar bent of spirit towards them, or from the opposition that is made to them, the whole man is oftentimes so engaged, as that it is regardless of personal holiness and righteousness. Such persons have seemed like keepers of a vineyard, but their own vineyard they have not kept; whilst they have been intent on one part of the profession, others far more important have been neglected. Corrupt nature is apt to compensate in the conscience, the neglect of one duty with diligence in another; and if men engage in a present duty, a duty as they judge exceeding acceptable with God, and attended with difficulty in the world, they are apt enough to think that they may give themselves a dispensation in some other things; that they need not attend to universal holiness and obedience, with the strictest circumspection and accuracy, as seems to be required; yea, this is the ruin of most hypocrites and false professors in the world. The other part of our profession consists in our adherance to a due observance of all gospel institutions and commands, according to the charge of Christ; Matt. xxviii, 20; and the necessity of this part of our profession appears from its comparative importance, for the visible kingdom of Christ in this world depends upon it.

§14. Obs. 5. It is a signal privilege to be evangelized. This the prophet emphatically expresseth; Isa:

479 ix, 1, 2, "Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulon, and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards did most grievously afflict her by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations; the people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light; they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." Christ in the preaching of the gospel is called the "Sun of righteousness," as he who brings righteousness, "life and immortality to light by the gospel." Now what greater privilege can such as have been kept all their days in a dungeon of darkness under the sentence of death be made partakers of, than to be brought out into the light of the sun, with a tender of life, peace, and liberty made them? And this is in proportion as spiritual darkness, inevitably tending to eternal darkness and death, is more miserable than any temporal darkness; and in proportion as spiritual light, the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ," excelleth the outward light which directs the body. Hence Peter expresseth the effect of the gospel by God's calling us "out of darkness into his marvellous light," 1 Pet. ii, 9. It is the gospel alone that brings the light of God, or life and blessedness, to men, who without it are under the power of darkness here, and reserved for everlasting darkness and misery hereafter.

§15. Obs. 6. The gospel is no new doctrine: it was preached to the people of old, as well as unto us. The great prejudice against the gospel at its first preaching was, that it was generally esteemed (naivy didaxn) a new doctrine, Acts xvii, 18, a matter never known before in the world. And so was the preaching of Christ himself charged to be, Mark i, 27. But

we may say of the gospel, what John says of the commandment of love; it is both a new commandment, and it is an old one, which was from the beginning, 1 John ii, 7, 8. In the preaching of the gospel by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and his apostles, it was new in respect of the manner of its administration with sundry circumstances of light, evidence, and power; and so it is in all ages, in respect to any fresh discoveries of truth from the word, formerly hidden or eclipsed: but whatever new declarations have been made of it, whatever means have been used to instruct men in it, yet the gospel itself was still the same throughout all times and ages. What John the Baptist said of Christ and himself, may be accommodated to the law and the gospel, as preached by Christ and his apostles; though it came after the law, yet it was preferred above it, because it was before it. It was, in the substance and efficacy of it, revealed and promulgated long before the giving of the law, and therefore in all things was to be preferred before it. It appears then from first to last, the gospel is, and ever was, the only way of coming to God; and to think of any other way for that end is both highly vain, and exceedingly derogatory to the glory of God's wisdom, faithfulness, and holiness.

§16. Obs. 7. The great mystery of profitable believing consists in the mixing, or incorporating of truth and faith in the minds of believers. Truth, as truth, is the proper object of the understanding: hence, as it can assent to nothing but under the notion of truth; so what is so indeed, being duly proposed, it embraceth and cleaveth to necessarily and unavoidably. For truth and the understanding are as it were of the same nature, and being orderly brought together, do absolutely incorporate. It implants a type and

figure of itself upon the mind; and knowledge is the relation, or rather the union that is between the mind and truth, or the things that the mind apprehends as true. And where this is not, when men have only fluctuating conceptions about things, their minds are filled indeed with opinions, but they have no true knowledge of any thing: as the mind acts naturally by its reason, to receive truths that are natural and suited to its capacity; so it acts spiritually and supernaturally by faith, to receive truths spiritual and super natural. Herewith are these truths to be mixed and incorporated. Believing doth not consist in a mere assent to the truth of the objects, but in such a reception of them, as gives them a real subsistence in the soul; and this in-being of the things believed really operating and producing their immediate effect, love, joy, and obedience, is their spiritual mixture and incorporation, whereof we speak. And here lies the main difference between saving faith, and the temporary persuasions of convinced persons, the latter gives no subsistence to the things believed in the minds of men, so as to produce their proper effects. It may be said of them as it is of the law in another case; they have the shadow of good things to come, but not the very image of the things. There is not a real reflection of the things they profess to believe, made upon their minds: for instance; the death of Christ, or Christ crucified, is proposed to our faith in the gospel; now the proper effect of genuine faith in this object, is to destroy, to crucify, or mortify sin in us; but where it is apprehended by a temporary faith only, this effect will not at all be produced in the soul. Sin will not be mortified, but rather secretly encouraged; for it is natural to men of corrupt minds to conclude, that they may "continue in sin because grace doth abound."

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On the contrary, where faith gives the subsistence before mentioned to the death of Christ in the soul, it will undoubtedly be the death of sin, Rom. vi, 3, 4. A man may think well of that which is tendered him, and yet not receive it; but what a man receives duly, and for himself, becomes properly his own. This work of faith then, in receiving the word of promise, with Christ and his atonement, consists in its giving them a real admittance into the soul, to abide there as in their proper place. And how is it to be received? As a word, this is to be (epulos) ingrafted into the mind. Now we all know that by ingrafting there becomes an incorporation, a mixture of the natures of the stock and graft into one common principle. As the scion, being inoculated or grafted into the stock, turns the natural juice of the stock into another kind of fructifying nutriment than it had before; so the word being by its mixture with faith ingrafted into the soul, changeth the natural operation of it, to the production of spiritual effects, which before it had no virtue for; and it transforms also the whole mind, according to another allusion, chap. vi, 17, into a new shape, as wax is changed by the impression of a seal into the likeness of it. The word is said to be food, strong meat, and milk, suited to the respective ages and constitutions of believers; and Christ, the principal subject of the gospel revelation says of himself, that he is the bread that came down from heaven, that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood drink indeed. Now faith is the eating of this provision; and as in eating the food is received, and by digestion turned into the very substance of the body; so the word being prepared as spiritual food for the soul, is received by faith, and by a spiritual eating and digestion is turned into an increase and strength

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