SERMON VII.

Of Believing in JESUS CHRIST.

I JOHN. III. 23.

And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jefus Christ.

TH

HE firft duty we owe to chriftianity, SERM. as a revelation from God, is to give VII. it a fair hearing, to confider it maturely, in order to a fixed refolution of obeying it; if it appeareth, upon an impartial enquiry, to be that divine doctrine which it is pretended to be; without this it cannot have its proper effect upon us, on the temper of our minds and our converfations, nor can we reasonably hope for a participation of the benefits it offereth. But there are many who bearing, bear not the gofpel, nor understand it; they are careless and unattentive, wavering and unconftant, or their minds inlaid with deep prejudices against the truth and power of godliness, against that ftrictness and purity, that innocence and goodness, which the precepts

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SER M. cepts and the example of Jefus Chrift reVII. commend; on the contrary, the honeft unprejudiced mind, that with understanding and good affections receiveth the word, bringeth forth fruit abundantly. Whofoever hath ears to hear let him hear; whofoever is not under a moral incapacity by depraved affections, vehement paffions, and vicious habits, will attend to what is spoken by that great prophet and teacher, whom God hath anointed and fent into the world to declare his mind.

Suppofing this to be our' difpofition, our proper and most important enquiry will be concerning the terms of the gospel, and what it demandeth of us; and every one must fee, that faith in our Lord Jefus Chrift is one main duty of a christian, and made a chief condition of his acceptance with God. It runneth through the whole New Teftament, as its principal fubject. What our Saviour in preaching the gospel of his kingdom first propofed, was, that men should believe in him, and upon their compliance he promiseth that they fhall not fee death, but have everlafting life; and on the other hand he threateneth, that whofoever did not believe fhould be condemned and perish, The doctrine of the apostles was the fame; They infifted on faith as a fummary of the

terms

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terms of salvation; as when with great fo- SERM. licitude, the jailor afketh St. Paul and Silas, VII. what he should do to be faved? The answer is, believe in the Lord Jefus Chrift, and thou: fhalt be faved, Acts xvi. 31. To faith our juftification is attributed in the epiftles of the apostle Paul; we are told that without faith it is impoffible to pleafe God; and, in: fine, the indifpenfable neceffity of it must be apparent to every one that with the leaft degree of attention readeth the fcriptures.

I fhall therefore endeavour to explain the nature of that believing on the name of the Lord Jefus, which my text faith is the commandment of God to us, to all chriftians, all to whom the gofpel is fairly propofed, and which is every where by the facred writers declared to be fo neceffary. The moft obvious fenfe of believing is affenting to a propofition as true, not upon the most certain demonstrative evidence, for then our affent is knowledge, but however upon evidence fitted to determine the judgment, and particularly upon teftimony. Although this is implied in the faith of a chriftian, the faith fo much celebrated in the gofpel, yet I do not take it to be principally meant; because fuch an affent is not properly the fubject of a command; fo our minds are framed that

SERM. we are wholly paffive in believing, difbeVII. lieving, or doubting; it is impoffible for

us not to believe when we fee evidence for, not to diffent when we fee evidence against, a propofition; not to be in suspense when we do not fee preponderating evidence on either fide of a difputable point proposed to our confideration. A very little reflection will fatisfy any person that this is fo, that our affent doth not depend on our choice nor follow our inclinations; very often we cannot help believing what we are very unwilling to believe, as on the other hand, our most earneft defires do not neceffarily determine our perfuafion, but we are convinced of the falfhood of what we paffionately wish to be true. It can never then be reasonably thought that bare believing or affent, abstractly confidered, is our duty, or difbelieving our fin; that there is virtue in the one, or vice in the other, any more than in perceiving or not perceiving fenfible qualities of which we have or have not the ideas conveyed to us by the organs of fenfe. Yet there is fomething implied in believing the gofpel, or believing on the name of Jesus Christ, or fomething neceffary to it, which may very well be understood to be commanded; it certainly hath fome dependence on our affections and our

wills, which are properly fubject to divine SER M. authority. Experience sheweth us that igno- VII. rance and errors, or wrong judgments, frequently take their rife from inconfideration and prejudice; and that a diligent attention, an impartial unprejudiced inquiry, would lead men to believe what for want of it they do not believe. It is not a blind credulity, a perfuafion taken up without juft and reafonable grounds, as merely upon tradition, the force of education, a confidence in the wisdom and authority of men, it is not, I fay, fuch a perfuafion which the scripture commendeth under the name of faith, but that which is the refult of a careful examination, or requireth and implieth good difpofitions; and these difpofitions, and that examination may very reasonably be enjoined; in them confifteth all the virtue of believing. Let any man feriously think with himself, if there be any difference in the refpect fhewn to truth and falfhood when they are both embraced upon the fame grounds; for example, what goodness there is in receiving the Bible any more than the Alchoran, when either is received, not in confequence of honeft enquiry, or any immediate correspondence with the good difpofitions of the heart, but only as the rule of religion