Section 1.

SECTION 1.

A plain definition of saving faith, how believing is the gift of God, and whether it is in our power to believe.

WHAT is faith? It is believing heartily. What is saving faith? I dare not say that it is “believing heartily, my sins are forgiven me for Christ’s sake;” for if I live in sin, that belief is a destructive conceit, and not saving faith. Neither dare I say that “saving faith is only a sure trust and confidence that Christ loved me, and gave himself for me;” f124 for, if I did, I should damn almost all mankind for four thousand years. Such definitions of saving faith are, I fear, too narrow to be just, and too unguarded to keep out Solifidianism. A comparison may convince my readers of it. If they desired me to define man, and I said, “Man is a rational animal that lives in France in the year 1774;” would they not ask me whether I suppose all the rational animals that lived on this side the English channel in 1773 were brutes? And if you desired to know what I mean by saving faith, and I replied, It is a supernatural belief that Christ has actually atoned for my sins upon the cross: would you not ask me whether Abraham, the father of the faithful, who would have believed a lie if he had believed this, had only damning faith?

To avoid therefore such mistakes; to contradict no scriptures; to put no black mark of damnation upon any man, that in any nation “fears God and works righteousness;” to leave no room for Solifidianism; and to present the reader with a definition of faith adequate to “the everlasting Gospel,” I would choose to say, that “justifying or saving faith is believing the saving truth with the heart unto internal, and [as we have opportunity] unto external righteousness, according to our light and dispensation.” To St. Paul’s words, Romans 10:10, I add the epithets internal and external, in order to exclude, according to 1 John 3:7, 8, the filthy imputation under which fallen believers may, if we credit the Antinomians, commit internal and external adultery, mental and bodily murder, without the least reasonable fear of endangering their faith, their interest in God’s favour, and their inamissible title to a throne of glory.

But “how is faith the gift of God?” Some persons think that faith is as much out of our power as the lightning that shoots from a distant cloud; they suppose that God drives sinners to the fountain of Christ’s blood as irresistibly as the infernal legion drove the herd of swine into the sea of Galilee; and that a man is as passive in the first act of faith, as Jonah was in the act of the fish, which cast him upon the shore. Hence the absurd plea of many who lay fast hold on the horns of the devil’s altar, unbelief, and cry out, “We can no more believe than we can make a world.”

I call this an absurd plea for several reasons:

(1.) It supposes that when “God commands all men every where to repent and to believe the Gospel,” he commands them to do what is as impossible to them as the making of a new world.

(2.) It supposes that the terms of the covenant of grace are much harder than the terms of the covenant of works. For the old covenant required only perfect human obedience: but the new covenant requires of us the work of an almighty God, i.e. believing; a work this which, upon the scheme I oppose, is as impossible to us as the creation of a world, in which we can never have a hand.

(3.) It supposes that the promise of salvation being suspended upon believing, a thing as impracticable to us as the making of a new world, we shall as infallibly be damned if God do not believe for us, as we should be if we were required to make a world on pain of damnation, and God would not make it in our place.

(4.) It supposes that believing is a work which belongs to God alone: for no man in his senses can doubt but creating a world, or its tantamount, believing, is a work which none but God can manage.

(5.) It supposes that (if he, who believeth not the Divine record, makes God a liar, and shall be damned,) whenever unbelievers are called upon to believe, and God refuses them the power to do it, he as much forces them to make him a liar and to be damned, as the king would force me to give him the lie, and to be hanged, if he put me in circumstances where I could have no chance of avoiding that crime and punishment, but by submitting to the alternative of creating a world.

(6.) It supposes that when Christ “marvelled at the unbelief of the Jews,” he showed as little wisdom as I should were I to marvel at a man for not creating three worlds as quickly as a believer can say the three creeds.

(7.) That when Christ reproved his disciples for their unbelief he acted more unreasonably than if he had rebuked them for not adding a new star to every constellation in heaven.

(8.) That to exhort people to “continue in the faith,” is to exhort them to something as difficult as to continue creating worlds. And, lastly, that when Christ fixes our damnation upon unbelief, see Mark 16:16, and John 3:18, he acts far more tyrannically than the king would do if he issued out a proclamation informing all his subjects that whosoever shall not, by such a time, raise a new island within the British seas, shall be infallibly put to the most painful and lingering death.

Having thus exposed the erroneous sense in which some people suppose that “faith is the gift of God,” I beg leave to mention in what sense it appears to me to be so. Believing is the gift of God’s grace, as cultivating the root of a rare flower given you, or raising a crop of corn in your field, is the gift of God’s providence. Believing is the gift of the God of grace, as breathing, moving, and eating, are the gifts of the God of nature. He gives me lungs and air that I may breathe: he gives me life and muscles that I may move: he bestows upon me food, and a mouth, that I may eat: and when I have no stomach, he gives me common sense to see I must die, or force myself to take some nourishment or some medicine. But he neither breathes, moves, nor eats for me; nay, when I think proper, I can accelerate my breathing, motion, and eating; and if I please I may even fast, lie down, or hang myself, and by that mean put an end to my eating, moving, and breathing. Once more: faith is the gift of God to believers, as sight is to you. The Parent of good freely gives you the light of the sun, and organs proper to receive it: he places you in a world where that light visits you daily: he apprizes you that sight is conducive to your safety, pleasure, and profit; and every thing around you bids you use your eyes and see: nevertheless, you may not only drop your curtains, and extinguish your candle, but close your eyes also. This is exactly the case with regard to faith. Free grace removes (in part) the total blindness which Adam’s fall brought upon us: free grace gently sends us some beams of truth, which is the light of the “Sun of righteousness;” it disposes the eyes of our understanding to see those beams; it excites us various ways to welcome them; it blesses us with many, perhaps with all the means of faith, such as opportunities to hear, read, inquire; and power to consider, assent, consent, resolve, and re-resolve to believe the truth. But, after all, believing is as much our own act as seeing. We may, nay, in general do suspend, or omit the act of faith; especially when that act is not yet become habitual, and when the glaring light that sometimes accompanies the revelation of the truth is abated. Nay, we may imitate Pharaoh, Judas, and all reprobates; we may do by the eye of our faith what some report that Democritus did by his bodily eyes. Being tired of seeing the follies of mankind, to rid himself of that disagreeable sight he put his eyes out. We may be so averse from “the light which enlightens every man that comes into the world;” we may so dread it because our works are evil, as to exemplify, like the Pharisees, such awful declarations as these: — “Their eyes have they closed, lest they should see, &c: wherefore God gave them up to a reprobate mind,” and “they were blinded.”

When St. Paul says that Christians “believe according to the working of God’s mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead,” he chiefly alludes to the resurrection of Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost; the former of these wonders being the great ground and object of the Christian faith, and the latter displaying the great privilege of the Christian dispensation. To suppose, therefore, that nobody savingly believes, who does not believe according to an actual, overwhelming display of God’s almighty power, is as unscriptural as to maintain that God’s people no longer believe, than he actually repeats the wonders of Easter day, and of the day of pentecost. Is it not clear that the apostle had no such notions when he wrote to the Corinthians? “I declare unto you the Gospel, which I preached unto you, which you have received; wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory [if ye hold fast, as the original means] what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I declared unto you, &c, that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and that he rose again, according to the Scriptures, &c, so we preach, and so ye believed.” Again: how plain is the account that our Lord and his forerunner give us of faith and unbelief! “Verily we speak what we do know, and testify what we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. What he [Christ] hath seen and heard, that he testifieth, and no man [comparatively] receiveth his testimony; but he that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.”

Two things have chiefly given room to our mistakes respecting the strange impossibility of believing. The first is our confounding the truths which characterize the several Gospel dispensations. We see, for example, that a poor, besotted drunkard, an overreaching, greedy tradesman, a rich, skeptical epicure, and a proud, ambitious courtier, have no more taste for “the Gospel of Christ,” than a horse and a mule have for the high-seasoned dishes that crown a royal table. An immense gulf is fixed between them and the Christian faith. In their present state they can no more believe “with their heart unto righteousness in Christ,” than an unborn infant can become a man without passing through infancy and youth. But, although they cannot yet believe savingly in Christ, may they not believe in God according to the import of our Lord’s words’ “Ye believe IN GOD, believe also IN ME?” If the Pharisees could not believe in Christ, it was not because God never gave them a power equal to that which created the world; but because they were practical Atheists, who actually rejected the morning light of the Jewish dispensation, and by that mean absolutely unfitted themselves for the meridian light of the Christian dispensation. This is evident from our Lord’s own words’ “I know you, that ye have not the love of God [or a regard for God] in you. I come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not, [though ye might do it; for] if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, who receive honour one of another? &c. There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, [and submitted to his dispensation,] ye would have believed me, [and submitted to] my Gospel. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”

The second cause of our mistake about the impossibility of believing now, is, the confounding of faith with its fruits and rewards; which naturally leads us to think that we cannot believe, or that our faith is vain, till those rewards and fruits appear. But is not this being ingenious to make the worst of things? Had Abraham no faith in God’s promise till Isaac was born? Was Sarah a damnable unbeliever till she felt the long-expected fruit of her womb stir there? Had the woman of Canaan no faith till our Lord granted her request, and cried out “O woman, great is thy faith, let it be done unto thee even as thou wilt?” Was the centurion an infidel till Christ “marvelled at his faith,” and declared “he had not found such faith, no, not in Israel?” Was Peter faithless till his master said, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona,” &c? Did the weeping penitent begin to believe only when Christ said to her, “Go in peace, thy faith hath saved thee?” And had the apostles no faith in “the promise of the Father,” till their heads were actually crowned with celestial fire? Should we not distinguish between our sealing the truth of our dispensation with the seal of our faith, according to our present light and ability; and God’s sealing the truth of our faith with the seal of his power, or actually rewarding us by the grant of some eminent and uncommon blessing? To believe is OUR part; to make “signs follow them that believe” is GOD’S part; and because we can no more do God’s part than we can make a world, is it agreeable either to Scripture or reason to conclude that doing our part is equally difficult? Can you find one single instance in the Scriptures of a soul willing to believe, and absolutely unable to do it? From these two scriptures, “Lord, increase our faith; — Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief,” can you justly infer that the praying disciples and the distressed father had no power to believe? Do not their words evidence just the contrary? That we cannot believe any more than we can eat, without the help and power of God, is what we are all agreed upon; but does this in the least prove that the help and power, by which we believe, is as far out of the reach of willing souls as the help and power to make a world?

Such scriptures as these: “Unto you it is given to believe: a man can receive nothing, except it be given him from above: no man can come unto me except the Father draw him: every good gift [and of course that of faith] cometh from the Father of lights.” Such scriptures, I say, secure indeed the honour of free grace, but do not destroy the power of free agency. To us that freely believe in a holy, righteous God, it is given freely to believe in a gracious, bleeding Saviour; because the sick alone “have need of a physician;” and none but those who believe in God can see the need of an advocate with him. But ought we from hence to conclude that our unbelieving neighbours are necessarily debarred from “believing in God?” When our Lord said to the unbelieving Jews, that they could not believe in him, did he not speak of a moral impotency — an impotency of their own making? I ask it again, If they obstinately resisted the light of their inferior dispensation; if they were none of Christ’s Jewish sheep, how could they be his Christian sheep? If an obstinate boy sets himself against learning the letters, how can he ever learn to read? If a stubborn Jew stiffly opposes the law of Moses, how can he submit to the law of Christ? Is it not strange that some good people should leap into reprobation, rather than admit so obvious a solution of this little difficulty? From the above-mentioned texts we have then no more reason to infer that God forces believers to believe, or that he believes for them, than to conclude that God constrains diligent tradesmen to get money, or gets it for them, because it is said, “We are not sufficient to think any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God — who gives us all things richly to enjoy. Remember the Lord thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth.”

From the whole I conclude, that so long as “the accepted time” and “the day of salvation” continue, all sinners, who have not yet finally hardened themselves, may day and night (through the help and power of the general light of Christ’s “saving grace,” mentioned John 1:9, and Titus 2:11,) receive some truth belonging to the everlasting Gospel; though it should be only this: “There is a God, who will call us to an account for our sins, and who spares us to break them off by repentance.” And their cordial believing of this truth would make way for their receiving the higher truths that stand between them and the top of the mysterious ladder of truth. I grant it is impossible they should leap at once to the middle, much less to the highest round of the ladder: but if the foot of it is upon earth, in the very nature of things the lowest step is within their reach, and by laying hold on it they may go on “from faith to faith,” till they stand firm even in the Christian faith, if distinguishing grace has elected them to hear the Christian Gospel. The most sudden conversions imply this gradual transition. As in the very nature of things, when “the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip” from the eunuch, and transported him to Azotus, he made Philip’s body rapidly measure all the distance between the wilderness of Gaza and Azotus: so, when he helped the Philippian jailer from the gates of hell to the gates of heaven in one night, he made him rapidly pass through the fear of God, the dread of his justice, and the pangs of penitential desires after salvation, before he entered into the joyous rest that remains for those that heartily believe in Christ. Nor is this quick, though gradual transition from midnight darkness to noon-day light an unintelligible mystery, since we are witnesses of a similar event every revolving day. The vegetable and the animal world help us likewise to understand the nature of sudden conversions. Every philosopher knows that a mushroom passes through almost as many stages of the vegetative life in six hours as an oak does in two hundred years: and those animalculæ, that frisk into life in the morning of a summer’s day, propagate their species at noon, are old at four o’clock, and dead at six, measure the length of animal life as really as Methuselah did his millennium.