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for putting the question, that we see many men who are buried in wickedness, whofe life is but one continued scene of guilty enjoyments, who facrifice their honour, their faith, and their religion, to luft, covetousness, or intemperance; who yet profess to believe all the doctrines of the Gospel, and do really believe them, for aught that any man knows to the contrary. But, when I reflect upon the express declarations of the Gospel, that every one who believeth fhall be faved, that all the workers of iniquity fhall be deftroyed; if these characters can fubfift together, if the fame person at the same time may be both a believer and a worker of iniquity, there is a greater contradiction in the Gofpel than any that has yet been pretended by its keenest enemies.

How must we then account for this difficulty? The true answer, I think, is, that the difficulty arifes from confounding and blending together ideas which are perfectly diftinct, from not separating between faith confidered as a principle of knowledge, and as a principle of religion. In common life we know many things upon the evidence of faith: fuch are the things which we receive upon the authority of historical evidence, or upon the report and teftimony of credible witneffes: and fuch influence has this principle of knowledge in the world, that there is hardly any thing of confequence that is not determined by it. There is not a trial that affects either our lives or our fortunes, the iffue of which does not depend upon this principle of knowledge, the judge and the jury not being fuppofed to have the evidence of their own fenfes of the facts which come under their determination. I mention this to

put it out of difpute that faith is one of the fources or principles of our knowledge. Now mere fpeculative knowledge has nothing in it of moral good or evil: a man is not better or worfe for what he knows, till he comes to act, or to be influenced to action by his knowledge. Bare knowledge therefore is nothing akin to religion; for religion is not one of those very indifferent things, which has neither good nor evil in it. The fpeculative knowledge therefore of truths depending upon divine teftimony is mere knowledge, and not religion: for there is no difference in the fimple act of the mind, whether the affent be grounded upon divine teftimony, or human teftimony; unless you think that every thing must be religion, that depends upon our belief of the being of God: which is not true; because there may be this belief, where there can be no religion; for St. James has told us, that the devils believe and tremble. Now the wicked man's faith can be nothing more but this fpeculative knowledge or belief of divine truths: for it is evident it has no effect, no influence; and is therefore fo far from being the faving faith of the Gofpel, that it is not in any degree religious. Our Lord in the Gospel has given us a fhort defcription of religion, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy foul, and thy neighbour as thyself. Now, in order to love God, we must know him, and his attributes; in order to love our neighbour, we must know our neighbour, and his condition: and there is juft as much religion in knowing God without loving and obeying him, as there is in knowing our neighbour without loving or regarding him. The man who

believes God, and pretends to a right faith in divine matters, and lives in the neglect of God, in contempt of his commands, and fins in defiance of knowledge, has just as much faith, as the Prieft and the Levite had charity, who faw their neighbour ftripped and wounded, and lying half-dead in the road, and looked on him, and passed by on the other fide. The knowledge of God is but like other natural knowledge, as long as it has its refidence in the head only to become a principle of religion, it muft defcend into the heart, and teach us to love the Lord with all our minds, with all our fouls, and with all our frength: and if this be true of the knowledge of God, which is the first and greatest of all divine truths, it must be true in all other inftances whatever. The faith then of the Gospel, and which the wicked man is an utter stranger to, is that faith which makes us cleave fteadfastly to the Lord with full purpose of heart. And this will farther appear under the fecond head, which was to fhew,

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Secondly, That faith cannot be a principle of religion, till it has its effect and operation in the heart. If we confider religion under the notion of action, this propofition has, I think, nothing strange or furprifing in it for it is not only true of faith, but of every principle of knowledge and action it is altogether as true of fenfe, as it is of faith. As faith makes us cleave to God, so fenfe makes us cleave to the world: but, till fenfe has poffeffion of the heart, it has no power or efficacy, and is of no use and service to the world. We learn from sense the existence and reality of things temporal: but this affent of the mind to the evidence of fenfe

never made any man wicked or worldly-minded: for, if it did, no man would ever be righteous; for the best man that ever was in the world had his knowledge of external things from the evidence of sense. But, when fense ftirs the defires and affections of the heart, then it becomes a principle of action, and a fierce combatant for the world against the powers of faith. If we remember what was faid of the wicked man with regard to his faith and per-. fuafion about divine truths, we fhall find how exactly the righteous man is in the fame cafe in respect to fenfible things: as the wicked man has the knowledge of faith, but nothing religious, fo has the righteous man all the knowledge of sense, but nothing fenfual: the difference therefore between a fenfual man and a righteous man does not confift in this, that one knows moft of fenfible things, and the other most of divine things, for this in both cafes may be, and often is, false; but it lies in this, that one pursues the objects of fenfe, the other the objects of faith.

To trace this parallel between sense and faith a little farther may give us perhaps a true conception of the nature of faith, the thing we seek after. Let us confider then how the cafe ftands between sense and faith, things prefent and things to come, between fenfuality and religion. The defires which God has planted in our nature, are the springs of action; and we always propose the obtaining fome end, which is the object of fome defire, in every thing we do. It is evident then, that, where there is nothing to move and incite our defires, we must be unconcerned and inactive. All objects of our

defires are firft objects of the understanding, according to the known faying of the poet, ignoti nulla cupido. But there are many objects of the mind which are never objects of the paffions; for the mind must not only apprehend the thing, but likewise apprehend it as a real thing, and as having the relation of good or evil to a man, before it can have any effect upon our inclinations. From this account it is plain, that to make a man perform the actions either of religion or of common life, his defires, which are the fprings of action, must be moved and fince nothing can move the defires, which is not first the object of the understanding, he must have the knowledge of the things of this life, and of religion, and confider them under the notion of good or evil with refpect to himself.

Now the enjoyment of the things of this world is the business and employment of the sensual man : the good things of futurity and another life are the religious man's care and concern. As the objects are of different kinds, fo the means of obtaining the knowledge of the objects are likewise different. Things present are reprefented to our minds by every sense; the things of futurity by no fenfe : and in this fingle point lies the great advantage which the world has over religion. The world has as many ways of making itself familiar to us, as we have fenfes religion has only the dark glimpse of futurity, fuch as reafon, in its prefent feeble and low condition, can discover. The only thing then that is wanting to fet religion upon as good a foot as the world, and to make it able to bear up against

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