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SERMON VIII.

What mustI do to be saved?

ACTS xvi. 30, 31.

And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

You have had the nature of divine faith laid before you, and it was seen to be believing upon divine testimony, which testilies in the holy Scriptures, and is made out from them by the Spirit.

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I am now to speak of the object of this divine faith, which is God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And at present more generally of the divine nature, I believe in God. And here we must inquire,

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II. What it is to believe in him.

First. What God is.-God is a Spirit. I have no comprehension of what I say when I call God a Spirit, because I am quite a stranger to the nature of Spirit; but when I say, God is a Spirit, I mean hereby that he is quite contrary to body, that he has neither eyes, nor hands, nor other bodily members, like myself; but that he is something to which my reasonable soul is not absolutely unlike, of which I know that it has certain powers of understanding and willing, though I have not the least notion what the substance of it is. This Spirit is a living Spirit; all creatures, whether spiritual or visible, have their life from other, even from him; he has his life from none. I am is his name; he hath life in himself; and all creatures in heaven, hell, and earth, as at first they received their life from him, so every moment do they live and subsist by him. God is life in himself, and therefore life in all. This living Spirit is infinite; he is not limited by place or time, as creatures are, who can only be at one certain place, and who subsist by succession of time.

Of them all it must be said, they are here in this place, and nowhere else; they had at such a time a beginning, still they are, and the future, when it comes, shall make addition to their days: but of God it is said, he is everywhere at once, yet not a part of him here, and another part of him ten millions of miles on the other side the sun, but inconceivably everywhere at once in his whole essence. The heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. As also it must be said of God, he is eternal; he knows neither beginning, nor end; neither past, nor to come. Time is no measure of his existence; he was, or he will be, cannot be applied to his life. There is no conceiving the manner of his existing, nor hardly power in language to express what it is not. He lives without succession; and therefore, were it not improper to apply terms expressive of time to his life, you might invert the order of past and to come, and as well say, he will be from everlasting, he hath been to everlasting, as he hath been and will be, since time is not the measure of his being. He is almighty; he can do what he pleases. He hath done whatever is. With him the power is as easy as the will. What he wills he does, and that without the least difficulty, even as if to will and to do were the same act. heart, Let worlds be, all came forth into greater ease than you move your finger. heaven and earth, with all their furniture, shall pass away; and, at a third command, a new heaven and a new earth shall rise up in their place. He is blessed; infinitely happy in himself, incapable of addition or diminution to his happiness. The malice or misery of devils do not take from, the glory and services of angels do not add to, his happiness. Considered in his moral character, as governing the world, he is holy, just, and good. All his commands are holy and right, resulting not from an arbitrary exercise of power, but from his own excellency and supremacy, and our dependence upon him. All his dispensations are just and equal; there is no unrighteousness in anything that he does; they who serve him shall not be forsaken by him, and they who suffer have but their deserts. Both his commands and his dispensations display his goodness and good will towards us, as the one and the other tend to the happiness of his creatures. To obey his orders is liberty, to enjoy his favour is life. His

When he said in his being with infinitely When he wills again,

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afflictions are calculated to reclaim, his greatest judgments are suited to warn others; and, seeing sin and misery are inseparable, his greatest judgments, those that are eternal, have a tendency to the general good of his subjects, by forcing some to return from their evil ways, lest they perish after the example of others. Finally, God is unchangeable. Respecting his natural perfections, he must be so by the excellency and necessity of his nature; he cannot cease from being a living, omnipresent, eternal, almighty, blessed God, without ceasing to be God. And, in his moral character, he is incapable of change, because of his infinite wisdom, whereby he adjusts all things at once by weight and measure, without possibility of mistake, or need of alteration. His determinations are ordered in all things and sure, and therefore they stand fast for ever. Let this suffice for the first point, what God is.

Secondly. What it is to believe in him. There is a wide difference between believing that God is, and believing in him. The latter includes (which the former does not) a proper disposition of the heart towards him as God. Angels in heaven believe that God is, and also believe in him by a right disposition of heart towards him. So did Adam in innocence. But devils, though they believe God is, yet have no belief in him; and the sons of men, in the sinful state into which we are fallen, though they should believe God to be everything that he is, yet cannot believe in him, but in that peculiar way by which he offers himself to them as their God For the explaining of this, three things must be observed, as being implied in this first article of Christian faith, "I believe in God."

1. It implies a believing God to be what he is. For it is impossible to be disposed to God in love, trust, and service, or, which is the same thing, to believe in him, any further than he is believed to be that excellent Being who has a right to our hearts, and, by his all-sufficiency, is able to support the claim he makes upon our affections. "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of all them that diligently seek him." Where, although it is manifest that believing that such a Being as God is can have no influence to engage and encourage us sinners to come unto him, unless also we believe that he is a gracious rewarder of those who seek him;

yet, on the other hand, believing that God is the Being that he is, is the necessary foundation of the other; since it is only in proportion to that, that either his judgments or rewards can have any influence upon us. So that manifestly to believe in God implies a believing that he is what he is. Now it is evident that the most of men in fact, and it is certain all men by nature, do not believe God to be what he is; living incontestably without him in the world; his being, perfections, and majesty, not having the least practical influence upon them, which plainly shows that they have not in them any real belief that God is such a Being as he is. Devils believe, and in consequence thereof tremble; but they who lie dead in trespasses and sins, utterly unawakened and unconcerned about their state, are absolutely atheists; for they tremble not, and yet as well as devils would tremble, did they believe that God is the Being that he is, and in common with them they must tremble sooner or later, when they shall be made to know that there is a God that judgeth the earth: but, for the present, their hearts are so engaged by the things of the world, and their eyes are so blinded by the god of the world, that there is no belief in them that such a Being as God is. But how is this, when it is so commonly said, there is no such thing as an atheist in the world, and, in proof of that, it is alleged, that the most hardened sinner in it is afraid of death? My answer is, may not a man be afraid of death, without having any fear of God? But it is urged further, he is afraid too of what comes after death. This I greatly question, and almost venture to deny, if the man has never been awakened. I am sensible that the traditionary knowledge there is of God left in the world, and handed down from one to another, is sufficient to raise suspicions, and to beget a doubtful apprehension in the foresight of death upon the minds of those who do not believe in reality that God is what he is; as also I am sensible, that this traditionary knowledge is capable of being so reasoned upon by learned men, as to produce in them a seemingly strong assent to the truth of God's being and perfections; the reality of which I must question, since it begets in them no fear of God, or at least no other than is common to them with others; a superstitious fear, grounded on the vulgar opinion that there is a God: but this fear of death or judgment can by

no means prove that a man really believes God to be what he is, when his hardness, obstinacy, and wilfulness, so evidently prove the contrary; it being, I conceive, unquestionable, that what we really believe we are necessarily affected by in proportion to the importance which that truth is of unto us; consequently they, who are not moved by fear to seek after the salvation of their souls, have no real belief that God is what he is, though, through the opinion concerning him that prevails in the world, they may be unable to deny it, and so may not be without their apprehensions. There is need, therefore, of a divine illumination to induce a man to believe that God is what he is and when from the works of nature or Providence the being and perfections of God are made out in the heart, and a firm assent is gained, then the sinner sees God indeed; but at first he sees him as a consuming fire. What comfort can he take in an everlasting, almighty, omnipresent enemy? Were God his friend, what could equal his happiness? To be kept by an almighty arm, to be guided by unerring wisdom, to stand in the favour of divine Majesty and absolute sufficiency; this were glorious! But to look upon him as an enemy and avenger! In this view, every infinite perfection of God makes the wretchedness so much more abundantly deplorable. But out of this state of distress our professor is supposed to be passed. He says, "I believe that God is everything that he is," not with the terror of a slave, but with the comfort of a child, who regards what is his father's as having an interest therein. "I believe that God is; that he liveth omnipresent and eternal; that his power is boundless; that he is holy, just, and good; and my joy it is that he is what he is, though I have sinned against him, and have deserved his indignation. Now I can look upon him with delight in all his perfectness, and because he is all-perfect; in his perfection lies all my safety and all my happiness." In short, though a real belief that God (apprehended according to the truth of his being), namely, just and righteous, is, fills the awakened soul with fear, yet, when the belief of God's mercy in Jesus Christ is added thereunto, it fills the believing soul with comfort. And therefore,

2. In this article, "I believe in God," is implied a belief of the Gospel, that God is reconciled in Jesus Christ. And this

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