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faith is not only a general affent to gospel-declarations; but it includes perfonal application, from a confideration of our own concern in them. There is not only an act of the understanding, but correfpondent acts of will and affections. Therefore we read more than once of believing with the heart," A&s viii. 37. Rom. x. 9. We muft heartily confent to own and accept him in all the characters he bears, and have our fpirits impreffed fuitably to the nature and importance of what we affent to concerning him. We muft deliberately recognize him, with Thomas, for our Lord and our God, John xx. 28. As he is the only Saviour of finners; and set forth in the gofpel for a propitiation, through whom pardon and acceptance with God may be had: fo our belief of thefe general truths must be attended with the committing of ourselves to him to be faved by him in his own way, and a firm reliance upon him as able and willing to perform all the kind offices for us, which are included in the character of a Saviour, Heb. vii. 25. 2 Tim. i. 12. There must be a faith in his blood for the pardon of our fins in the virtue of it. Are we perfuaded, that he is the great Prophet fent of God, the faithful and true witnefs? We believe not this in a gof-. pel-fenfe, unlefs our fouls entirely bow to his inftructions, and are determined to hear him, and credit him and obey him in all that he fays, as far as we can difcover his mind, Mat. xvii. 5. We own his authority to be the univerfal Lord and Sovereign; but then only the belief of this is genuine, when we are truly

willing

willing that he shall be in all things fo to us, and fully refolved to be " under law to Chrift," 1 Cor. ix. 21. As foon as Saul became a believer, the language of his heart was, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" Acts ix. 6. Our belief of his all-fufficient grace muft be accompanied with a fixed dependance upon it for ourselves; being "ftrong in the grace that is in Chrift Jefus," 2 Tim. ii. 1. when we contemplate his holy and heavenly and most useful life and behaviour, as recorded in the gospel, a right faith eyes this as our pattern, and forms the mind to fincere purpofes of imitation.

And

These two things are to be understood as neceffarily included in a genuine faith in Chrift. The fruits of it will farther appear, when we confider the other particulars mentioned in the text. I proceed,

Secondly, To confider faith in Chrift, as now to be exercifed by us with this circumftance attending it, that we fee him not. "Tho' now ye fee him not, yet believing." The apoftle plainly fixes an emphafis upon this circumftance in the character of thofe to whom he wrote. And the main body of believers; all, except a few in Judea at the very beginning of Chriftianity, are in the fame circumftance. Some may be ready to magnify overmuch the disadvantageoufnefs of their condition in this refpect; to eftcem the cafe of thofe, who knew Chrift after the flesh, heard his doctrine, and saw his miracles, far happier than their own; and to think, that they have a far harder part to maintain a lively faith in Chrift,

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Christ, than those most primitive difciples had.

In answer to which, it might be sufficient to return the words of our Lord to Thomas. After he had expreffed an unreasonable diftruft of Christ's refurrection, though he had the teftimony of fo many credible perfons for it; Chrift condefcended so far as to offer him fenfible evidence of it: "Reach hither," fays our Lord, "thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my fide," my pierced fide; " and be not faithlefs, but believing," John xx. 27. Thomas, ftruck with admiration, cries out, "My Lord and my God," ver. 28. "Jefus faith unto him, Thomas, because thou haft feen me, thou haft believed; bleffed are they that have not. feen, and yet have believed," ver. 29. But as the apostle takes notice again in the text of this circumftance with commendation, and as I think it may lead us to fome useful thoughts. in our own condition, I chufe to confider the matter more particularly, and to offer the fol lowing things to obfervation.

2. An actual converfe with Chrift in the flesh did not produce faith in all, or even in the generality of thofe, who had that advantage. This appears through the history of the Gofpel. Though the doctrine of Chrift was fo divine and excellent, as often to raise the admiration of his hearers, infomuch that "they were astonished at his doctrine, Mat. vii. 28. and fometimes owned, that "never man fpake like this man," John vii. 46. Yet it was ineffectual to most of them for any faving purpofe. His miracles, though fo great as were

never before performed, though the spectators were dazzled with them, and fometimes forced to own that God was with him, yet generally failed to perfuade men to become his difciples in earneft. It is emphatically obferved of the people in one place, John xii. 375 38. that though he had done fo many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him That the faying of Efaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he fpake, Lord, who hath believed our report ? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed ?" Elfewhere we find "Chrift upbraided the cities [of Chorazin, and Bethfaida, and Capernaum,] wherein many of his mighty works were done, because they repented not," Mat. xi. 20. The number of his difciples in the days of his fleth was but few probably the five hundred brethren, of whom he is faid to have been seen at once after his refurrection, 1 Cor. xv. 6. made up the main body of the difciples he had during his perfonal miniftry. Judas, who ftatedly attended him as one of his twelve Apoftles, proved the most treacherous enemy to his Mafter, notwithstanding that advantage. These are plain evidences, how infufficient the bare fight of Chrift and perfonal converse with him were of themfelves to produce faith, and may prevent all repining that we lived not in thofe days.

2. Faith in Chrift is as reafonably claimed from us, as it was from those who actually faw him.

For on the one hand, those who lived in the time of Christ's fojourning on earth, had ma

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ny disadvantages for their faith which we have not, to balance fome advantages which they had above us. A very general prejudice prevailed among the Jews at that time, that the Meffiah was to fet up a temporal kingdom; with which the Difciples themselves appear from several paffages to have been deeply tinctured. This was a notion moft oppofite to the true character of Chrift, and which made his appearance in the world in a state of meannefs to be the reverse of the common expectations from the Meffiah. Hereupon he was generally defpifed and rejected of men :" and his death, while as yet the bleffed ends and uses of it were apprehended by very few, was the greatest damp to men's faith and hope. We are released from all thofe disadvantages by the full revelation of the Gospel; wherein we fee how ill-founded that expectation of a temporal kingdom was; and that his kingdom was not to be of this world, but of a spiritual and heavenly nature: and Chrift crucified is manifefted in the light of the New Teftament to be the wisdom and the power of God; though it was to the Jews a ftumbling block, and to the Greeks foolifhnefs.

On the other hand, though the first difciples had immediate fenfible evidence of Chrift's miracles, which we have not; and they, who beheld him after his refurrection, and faw him afcending into heaven, had a proof of these facts more infallible in the nature of the thing, than can be pretended in our cafe yet we have proofs every way fufficient. Eye and ear-witnesses, of most undoubted credit, have given teftimony to these things, and have feal

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